“My farm is located in the Lacona plain. I have always opposed fences, I think that where it is necessary to define a property or a function of use, hedges or simple fences can be used. But now I have to fence everything off if I still want to produce something by subtracting the crops from systematic devastation wrought by wild boars". Thus opens the letter of a a member of the Committee for the eradication of wild boars on Elba. “The cost is human, economic, landscape, energy. - continues the letter - But the dramatic emergency involves the entire Elban community, in various ways, as has been evident to everyone for too long.
Now the The Tuscan Regional Authority it has no more excuses to continue to postpone an effective strategy for the zero containment of allochthonous ungulates. Based on the initiative of mobilization of the Committee for the eradication of wild boar from Elba which took shape in recent months, starting from the elaboration of a substantial and rigorous document of scientific and historical study of the matter, the Community of the Park unanimously approved the urgent request to the Region to revoke the area suitable for hunting wild boar and to prepare an intervention plan aimed at zero containment ". "The resolution (invoked for years by farms) is - continues the letter - was endorsed by all municipal administrations, by the PN (Tuscan Archipelago National Park, ed) by ecological associations.
A historic step forward, but now we are at a decisive stage: the Region should authorize the PN to proceed with the tasks for the preparation of an operational plan for the zero containment of wild boars and mouflons, recognizing the island specificity, also in relation to the fragility of the ecological balance of a unique environment enclosed in a small territory ". "The moment is particularly favorable in terms of the possibility of finding the necessary resources using" life "projects or the next generation EU - reads the letter - Having lost this train, I fear we will have to resign ourselves to the definitive devastation of biodiversity and the hydrographic system as well as the countryside and gardens. It is essential, in the coming weeks, to press the Region by calling it to its responsibilities.
The risk is that the solution of the problem will again be entrusted to those who generated it, that is the hunting organizations. With a paradox and a miscalculation. The paradox is in the conflict of interest that would place hunters (through ATC management) in the condition of being at the same time those who have an interest in maintaining the populations of ungulates in order to hunt them (hoping for new suitable or "stealth" areas) and those who, on behalf of the Region, should ensure the zeroing in the territory. The calculation error is in focusing on the effectiveness of the hunting activity in pursuing containment. In fact, hunters are now few and old and the hunting methods are privileged (hunted) are a stimulus to the reproduction of wild boars as a consequence of the social organization of the species ".
"After so many years of mobilization attempts to ask for the ungulate emergency to be resolved, attempts that have always been shipwrecked on the sloth of the competent administrations and on the power of interdiction of the hunting world, there is a lot (and justified) resignation to the worst. But an opportunity has opened up, which should not be wasted. - continues the letter - Let us make our voice heard with renewed strength to the Region so that it finally takes on the historical responsibility of removing the island territory from a destiny of ecological, agricultural, landscape impoverishment and finally economic as well as increasingly marked hydrogeological instability ". "A leap of institutional dignity and political courage is needed to ensure a different ending to this very long-standing and devastating affair", concludes the letter (Here News Elba).