Two days have passed since the demonstrations in the farmers' square organized by Coldiretti To protest against wild boars, but there are those who want to tell a different reality: this is the case of WWF, who issued a note in which he blames the agricultural and hunting world for this uncontrolled proliferation. Here is what the association wrote about it: "In Rome and in other Italian cities, demonstrations were held promoted by Coldiretti to ask urgent interventions to protect the sector against damage caused to agriculture by wildlife, especially from wild boars. WWF Italy works daily alongside farmers in order to promote the use of good practices that can lead to a healthy coexistence between agriculture and wildlife, in particular in the case of pollinating insects and large mammals such as wolves or bears. But he never neglected the issue of the management of ungulates, especially wild boars.
The association has repeatedly presented concrete proposals to institutions on this issue also through the drafting of detailed documents containing the guidelines for sustainable management of wild boar in our country, as happened in 2014 and subsequently in 2019, on the occasion of hearings held before to the Agriculture Committees of the Chamber and the Senate. Proposals that, however, have always remained unheard by policy makers and by the same agricultural associations that today bring to the streets an "emergency" never managed with seriousness and determination. WWF Italy has always recognized the existence of a problem in the management of wild boar, underlining the need to address it on the basis of scientifically documented and not ideological evaluations. The history of wild boar management in Italy is the result of poor hunting management, with wrong approaches seasoned with rhetoric and easy demagoguery.
In the last decade, the will of many regional and national institutions has been evident to tackle the problem without generating conflicts with the hunting world to the detriment of farmers, exploiting their objective discomfort to support, for mere electoral reasons, the requests of those responsible for the problem and its constant aggravation. Evidence of this is what happened in the Agriculture Commission of the Senate, during the discussion of Affair No. 337 "problems relating to the damage caused to agriculture by the excessive presence of wildlife". On this occasion, in fact, despite the hearing of numerous and qualified exponents of the scientific world who have clarified how the expansion of wild boars in the territory and their proliferation are directly consequent to human actions such as immissions for hunting purposes, foraging and hunting in pursuit, have approved a resolution totally discordant with these objective conclusions.
Even the same agricultural associations, rather than protecting the interests of farmers in a secular and exclusive way, have essentially supported the demands of the hunting world which pursues completely different, often contrasting purposes, with those of farmers. Furthermore, the hostility of agricultural associations towards measures that attribute direct management of the wild boar to farmers is incomprehensible through the practice of catches, which are effective where adopted, and towards the activation of risk management tools financed with the resources of the Common Agricultural Policy. Today's demonstration promoted by Coldiretti confirms this contradictory management of the wild boar problem, with the presence in the square of the subjects responsible for poor wildlife management in our country alongside those who would like to represent the interests of agriculture. The modification of the hunting law requested by Coldiretti and proposed by the hunting world and by numerous political exponents, is not a solution and risks being just an easy shortcut that can generate further serious damage to all wildlife, attributing a public role to subjects. private individuals with a clear conflict of interest ".