On the official website of the European Commission the new document Key concepts is available, the result of the updating process started in 2018, of which Federcaccia has exposed several times the state of progress and the difficulties encountered by the hunting world in dialogue with the Italian institutions, in particular the Ministry of the Environment, now the Ministry for Ecological Transition. The new update consists of four parts: a general introduction, the species cards, the list of references used and the complete database.
The general introduction is important for understanding the species records, and highlights the inaccuracies still present and the need for specific research to clarify the phenomena of migration and reproductive cycles in the various EU Member States. On page nine there is significant information that confirms that the Italian National Authorities did not follow the Commission's recommendations, both in the procedure for preparing the proposed amendments, not having implemented a participatory table with stakeholders in the procedure, and not having used the most recent scientific publications, considered by the Commission to be the main references on which to base the updating of the Key concepts.
By comparing the recommendations of the Commission with those implemented by the Ministry, it can be concluded that Italy stood in sharp contrast to European requests and acted autonomously. On the other hand, analyzing the data sheets of the species, it is noted that in the texts accompanying the tables the Commission has recognized the inconsistency of many data between various Member States and Italy is often mentioned. Precisely for the species for which Hunting Federation and the Control Room had presented recent scientific data and publications, the Commission writes that the discrepancies can be explained by the confusion between winter movements due to trophic and / or climatic causes and the beginning of the actual migration.
These are the same arguments that Federcaccia had sent to the Commission through FACE and presented to the Italian authorities. This concept is expressed for the teal, the song thrush, the cesena and the redwing, all species for which Federcaccia and the Control Room had submitted requests for changes for the move to February of the decade in which the migration began. For the woodcock, the Commission writes verbatim that the pre-nuptial migration begins in February in the Mediterranean States, effectively disproving the position ISPRA and the table in which for Italy (the only country in the whole EU) the second decade of January is reported.
We believe these are small successes of all Federcaccia's work and research, which through FACE have been taken to the appropriate locations. We hope that the TAR will keep in mind the accompanying texts of the new document, but at the same time we note that the Italian national authorities have once again lost the opportunity to solve the problem at its root legal disputes over calendars and above all continue to reject the Commission's recommendations on the participation of hunters in decision-making processes.