The March 3rd appointment
Every year, March 3 is celebrated as World Wildlife Day (WWD), established in 2013 by the United Nations to celebrate the conservation of wild animals and plants. As reported by the same official website dedicated to this anniversary "People around the world rely on wildlife and resources based on biodiversity to meet our needs: from food, to fuel, to medicine, to shelter and clothing. To enable us to enjoy the benefits and beauty that nature offers us and our planet, people have worked together to ensure that ecosystems can thrive and that plant and animal species can exist for future generations." Conservation and protection are therefore not intended as an absolute prohibition on making sustainable use of natural resources, including fauna and flora.
Long-term survival
In this sense, the sustainable use of resources, linked to the involvement of local populations, has recently been reaffirmed by the IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an international non-governmental organization based in Switzerland which has been recognized as of observer of the United Nations General Assembly) as a key factor for wildlife conservation – https://bit.ly/IUCNSpeciesSurvivalCommission –. Hunting and fishing carried out in a sustainable way are the activities that ensure the long-term survival of wildlife species, because man's interest in the correct use of fauna resources allows the conservation and restoration of natural habitats, together with maintaining the balance between the different species. European and Italian hunters are protagonists of hundreds of projects in favor of wild species, described in biodiversitymanifesto.com in favor of both huntable and protected fauna, as well as numerous habitat conservation and restoration actions.
Migratory birds
In Italy the hunting world conserves and restores thousands of hectares of wetlands, in which hundreds of thousands of migratory birds stop, nest and feed, as are the funds of the Territorial Hunting Areas and Alpine Districts and of many Faunistic Hunting Companies to invest directly in disposable crops, restoration of hedges and groves, creation of watering points, containment of rhododendron in alpine areas, active involvement in monitoring. Regarding the sustainability of hunting, a recent work presented at the XXI National Ornithology Conference by the Federcaccia Studies and Research Office has shown that the impact of hunting in Italy on 20 migratory birds on the populations is on average 1,84%, with a probable overestimation for many species, since European populations were considered and not global ones.
Hunting in Italy
This data, combined with the favorable trends of many huntable species, including those subject to the greatest harvest, demonstrates that hunting as carried out today in Italy is sustainable and represents an essential conservation tool for the conservation of wild fauna. There is certainly still work to be done to improve the environments and management of some species but the principle to follow is one: sustainable use and hunters as an active part in conservation policies (Federcaccia Wildlife and Agro-Environmental Studies and Research Office).
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