A bolt from the blue
Like a bolt from the blue, the TAR of Milan on Tuesday annulled the regional resolution which had established through a scientific study what the mountain passes object of crossing of hunting flows to be inhibited for a radius of 1000 meters to the total hunting activity. The ruling of the Lombardy TAR on the crossings is as unexpected as it is astonishing in terms of the reasons given by the Judges. Below we report the comment of the Regional President of Federcaccia Lombardia, the lawyer Lorenzo Bertacchi “In fact, the TAR has established that as regards the closure of the "crossings affected by the migration routes", the Regions have no discretion, but that they are closed by law. We are faced with a real "nonsense": who concretely establishes what is a crossing and what is not? And who verifies, at least on the basis of indicators, whether a crossing point is "affected by migration routes" or not?
A specific study
Perhaps the Judges think that once they arrive in a place they can find a sign, placed by the Eternal Father, with the words "welcome to a crossing affected by migration routes". The Lombardy Region identified the crossings not by design, but by commissioning a specific study from a University! But the real icing on the cake is the appointment as commissioner which makes us wonder what he will have to do, if the passes are what they are and are known without being able to identify them on the basis of certain technical, orographic, ornithological parameters: the commissioner will be the Director General of 'ISPRA, i.e. the body which, at the request of the Region, responded that it did not have data available to be able to identify the crossings affected by the migration routes. What is certain is that if politics exercised its sacrosanct powers of direction on the activity of ISPRA, as Federcaccia Lombardia has been asking for some time, we would be much calmer.
Possible remedies
This time too we are faced with yet another confirmation that those who decide the fate of rural activities and whose objective is the protection of wildlife and the environment know nothing about either of them, and are certainly devoid of practical sense. Now we will see what the Commissioner will do: for the moment the Lombardy TAR, which probably ignores that migratory hunting is closed until at least 15 September 2024, has succeeded in the difficult task of banning selective wild boar hunting, the only one possible here in 5 months, the time given to the commissioner, on approximately 6.000 hectares of territory in the Region. We trust that the Region and the Regional Council will activate every possible remedy as soon as possible, not least by advocating in the State-Regions Conference the modification of 157/92". So the sword of Damocles returns of the total closure of hunting on those Brescian passes such as the Maniva, the Sella di Mandro in Lodrino and Capovalle whose territory the University of Insubria and ERSAF had not deemed necessary to prohibit hunting (source: FIDC Brescia).