Hunting in the Parco della Terra delle Gravine (Puglia), still controversy between hunters and environmentalists.
An amendment approved to the 2011 budget of the Puglia Region will allow hunting in a natural park, the Parco della Terra delle Gravine, on the Murgia of Bari, and will also allow access to unauthorized persons "with motorized vehicles on unmarked roads".
In this regard, the regional councilor for territorial planning, Angela Barbanente, stresses that the regional council "expressed a negative opinion on the amendment" and voted against, "since the regulatory change is clearly in contrast with the national framework law on protected areas".
On the subject, the president of the Apulian group of Sel, Michele Losappio points out: «The group I represent was the only one to vote against the amendment presented by a director of the Democratic Party with the support of the center-right opposition. The amendment was illustrated in a reticent way and only for the part that concerns the transit on the roads of the park. Its approval contains a clear unconstitutionality ». "The preparation of a new law by the councilor Barbanente - adds Losappio - is the right path to balance the various needs".
Now several Apulian environmental associations are protesting and announcing the battle. Legambiente asks the regional councilor Donato Pentassuglia (Pd) who presented the amendment to resign from the presidency of the environment commission of the Region. "The Regional Budget Law - say the associations - has been transformed into the occasion, as serious as it is immoral, to hit the Regional Park of the Gravine through a bad amendment that modifies the institutive law".
"From the safeguard rules, in fact - add the associations - the prohibition of hunting and that of access by motorized vehicles on unmarked roads is canceled". "So - they explain - it would be an absurd contradiction that in a protected area the hunters would be free to shoot and roam left and right". The goal, according to environmentalists, is “obviously to give free territory to hunters, in accordance with an electoral commodification, taking advantage of the blackmail of the approval of a law of considerable importance.
“Environmentalists will soon announce the 'blacklist' of those who voted for the amendment. "This wicked choice closes the Gravine Regional Park, a jumble of rock settlements, archaeological sites and naturalistic riches", says the president of Legambiente Puglia, Francesco Tarantini, who asks the governor Vendola "to take a step back because this is not Puglia we want ".
Source: La Gazzetta di Mezzogiorno