After the intervention of the environmentalists of the Green Swan who ask the mayors of Elba to stop complaining and have the courage to act politically, says Guido Allori, section president Coldiretti di Capoliveri and vice president Coldiretti Livorno. «We can only share the cry of alarm launched by the local representatives of Legambiente Arcipelago Toscano and the National Council Legambiente, as well as by some Mayors and by the Park Authority itself, on the management of ungulates on the island of Elba.
Wild boars and mouflons from the beginning of lockdown they have begun to frequent places and streets previously experienced by human activities, with the result that the battle is now open again. Battle is the right term: there are daily attacks on vegetable gardens, gardens, land and fences, uncontrollable looting of crops and spontaneous vegetation ». Like Legambiente, the president of Coldiretti Livorno Simone Ferri Graziani also addressed a clear request to the Tuscany Region: "We aim at the revision of the island as area dedicated to wild boar, the point on which we are most interested in taking a position because it directly affects the agricultural economy of the island. We put it in black and white in a conference organized by Coldiretti in April 2019 with the participation of the Park and the productive categories of the island.
Today, more than yesterday, containment remains the priority - adds Ferri Graziani -, on this we register a first but insufficient response in the order of President Rossi with which he authorized the volunteer agents to carry out interventions. An appreciable measure but lacking if not corroborated by a convinced and decisive commitment to implementation. Almost a month later, Elba is still under siege, so much so that the Park itself has asked the Region to provide "specific control techniques for these territories". For our part we ask that the farmer in possession of a hunting license, after 36 hours from the request to the bodies in charge, in case of lack of intervention, he can, because forced, intervene directly on his own fund with all the means provided for by the control actions, while in the absence of possession of the hunting license he can delegate a voluntary guard and / or a hunter licensed to control.
A procedure defined since 1992 by the same framework law on hunting is 157, to protect agricultural production ". Coldiretti is convinced as Legambiente that «Once the emergency has been overcome, the objective remains the revision of the« suitable area »and Ferri Graziani concludes:« We are due to a radical reform of the 2015 objective regional law, which has been stuck for a year now. Today we must move without delay from words to deeds with a profound wildlife management reform, to protect the agri-food and livestock heritage preserved over time by the farms that still survive on the island.
The alternative is to abandon the territory, the maintenance and small works, the family gardens and the crops that are the distinctive character of Elba: we do not intend to do so. On the contrary, the appeal that Legambiente addresses to the Ministry of the Environment, which asks for an extraordinary project to effectively deal with the ungulate emergency, seems to be acceptable and desirable, especially if, we add, the Region will not be able to review Elba's “vocation” to boar. In the absence of answers and in line with the regional confederation, sensational actions to protect property and crops cannot be ruled out, because the problem involves all the Tuscan provinces ».