We have decided to extend our best wishes to Happy Easter a all hunters and their families, through news, particularly welcome in difficult times like the ones we are experiencing. The good news for us hunters but more generally for all Tuscan citizens, is that from next May, the Tuscany Region will ban the use of "Glyphosate", a dangerous and potent herbicide, well in advance of the European Union Guidelines which banned it for December 2022. Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide non-selective post-emergence (phytotoxic for all plants) and is absorbed by the leaves and then translocated to any other part of the plant mainly by phloem.
This characteristic therefore allows it not only to hit the epigeal part of the weeds but the parts of hypogeal conservation, such as rhizomes, roots etc. Often this product is used in a large part of the world in symbiosis with genetically modified crops made resistant to the action of the herbicide with disastrous consequences for the ecosystem and biodiversity. The decision of the Tuscany Region is certainly to be considered a fact of global significance and certainly destined to be discussed in the coming weeks also within the national and European dynamics. As far as we are concerned, we can only express satisfaction with this result, well aware of the evident benefits that wildlife and more generally the entire ecosystem can derive from it.
Various studies and researches carried out by scientific and university bodies are known on the potential effects connected to human health and environmental resources; Accumulations in surface water (lakes and rivers) but also underground (flaps), reduction of biodiversity, effects on the survival of bees and pollinating insects. Highly limiting and impacting aspects and factors that are often linked to others generated by the massive use of "Pesticides and neoniticotinoids" which act on the central nervous system and on birds and small mammals. The progressive loss of presence of wildlife populations largely derives from these and other limiting elements (also of hunting interest) in agricultural and cultivated environments. There is no doubt that the “Glyphosate” story (and other synthetic products used in agriculture) requires an urgent reflection on the need to rethink the current agricultural model and the way of farming in our territories, favoring a change of strategy.
A different consideration is needed towards the ecosystem, biodiversity and consequently the human health. Altering the laws of the ecosystem for economic and productive purposes is too high a price to pay as it is unjustifiable for the new generations. The hunting world will have to deal more and more with how to contribute to the affirmation of processes of true change to avoid that one day nature will lose the final bill. Increasing our role in Europe, participating in the writing of future Rural Development Plans for the regions, thinking about new techniques to overcome the environmental costs of "chemical defense" as a weapon for agricultural productivity are imperative priorities. Develop projects to spend and invest the resources allocated by Europe to Italian agriculture, in favor of the environmental recovery of the territories and the increase of biodiversity means being in the field also as hunters, for a better future and at the same time to give meaning to the hunting of tomorrow.