Forty years have passed since people started talking about the Matese Park but, to date, the project has still not been realised. For this reason, aware of the importance of acting in defence of nature, the associations Salviamo l’Orso, Intramontes, Club Alpino Italiano Sottosezione di Bojano, Associazione Falco, Italia Nostra Sezione di Campobasso, Consulta Giovanile di Bojano, Via Micaelica Molisana, Molise Avventura, EFFERVESCIENZE ODV, Ente Nazionale Protezione Animale (ENPA) Sezione provinciale Isernia, Associazione per la Ricerca Divulgation and Environmental Education (ARDEA), Association for the Protection of Birds of Prey and their Environments, Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli (LIPU) Abruzzo e Molise, Io non ho Paura del Lupo, Rewilding Apennines, the Consorzio apistico ‘Con le api’ and ‘Con le api Bojano’, strongly reiterate their support for the institutions that are working to implement the difficult process of establishing the Matese National Park.
In agreement with the statements made by the Director of the National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise, Dr. Luciano Sammarone, the mayor of Barrea, Dr. Aldo Di Benedetto, and the testimony of the breeder Nunzio Marcelli, who works in the oldest protected area in the central Apennines, Salviamo L’Orso and the above-mentioned associations reaffirm their opinion that the establishment of the Park represents an enormous opportunity for the Matese communities.
We feel the need to reiterate our position and our support because, to date, this important initiative, which protects the general interests of the community, both locally and nationally, and which started no less than forty years ago, overcoming considerable obstacles, is still being attacked by some categories that defend particular private interests.
Some exponents of the agricultural world and hunting associations are protesting loudly against the law establishing the Matese National Park, passing the message that this will be ‘a disgrace’ for the area.
Our associations believe, on the contrary, that it will finally be an opportunity to protect and safeguard the natural, historical and cultural values of the area from illegality, to put an area that today seems to be the exclusive prerogative of a few ‘users’, hostage to a vision of exploitation of natural resources that must be overcome, in the national limelight.
Promoting and implementing a shrewd, responsible and legal management of the territory, in compliance with the rules, is the only tool available to communities, especially in the interest of local producers, to properly benefit from a ‘quality brand’ of products, as well as from rewarding measures, such as, for example, reimbursements for damage caused by wildlife, which today both regions concerned, Molise and Campania, are struggling to provide and never adequately.
Some farmers are afraid of the park’s rules, dictated by legislation that considers local communities as the pivot of the proper functioning of an area’s agroforestry practices, and which does not prohibit the practice of animal husbandry, as well as other traditional activities such as mushroom and truffle picking. Perhaps they prefigure and fear that a superordinate body, being of a national nature, will enforce laws that today are not honoured according to established practices, but are illegal?
These associations have raised protests against the rule of demonising animals, forgetting that compliance with this rule is required by existing regional and national laws. It sounds rather naïve to publicly admit, in the tone of protest, that they do not respect this rule because it would result in economic damage first and foremost for their company, as well as for the territory involved.
All this allows us to highlight how instrumental and selfish is the position of these opponents to the park, some not even local but part of an ‘inter-regional legion of solidarity against the constraints of protected areas’, in which they nonetheless carry out their activities.
It is a pity to have to remind them of the ‘principle of legality’, which should be the basis of civilised living, the same principle that penalises those who do not respect the rules, from city places to mountain peaks.
Is it necessary to remind the current ‘users’ of the areas covered by the nascent National Park that there is also the ‘polluter pays’ principle of Directive 2004/35/EC on environmental liability to begin seriously assessing their impact on water, soil or ecosystems?
With regard to the other main category of opponents, the hunters, these are once again demonstrating that they do not recognise the supremacy of the State – and therefore of the totality of the citizens it represents – with regard to the management of fauna, which is precisely the State’s unavailable heritage under Law 157/92. However, the position of some representatives of the category was known ever since they deserted the consultation meetings for the creation and perimeter of the protected area proposed by the ‘Consulta del Matese’, organising parallel and prejudicially opposed meetings. As evidence of how relative the defence of certain positions is, which, in the perception of the concessionaires, have been transformed from temporary concessions of the State into acquired rights, we would like to recall how equally legitimate is the request of another local stakeholder, such as the Via Micaelica Molisana association, which hopes for the inclusion of the lowland areas crossed by the Tratturo in the perimeter of the park,
thus excluding them from hunting activities, with the intention of restoring the interaction between man and the natural environment in these areas, also by safeguarding anthropological, historical, cultural values and traditional agro-forestry activities.
Every position is legitimate, but the writing associations would like to remind that civil society and its political spokesmen, whose commitment led to the promulgation of the law establishing the Matese National Park of 27 December 2017, no. 205, are not represented by those who have opposed the Park in recent days, but by thousands of other people who see in the protected area an opportunity to improve the environmental and economic conditions of the Matese and neighbouring areas, at a time when the effects of climate change and declining biodiversity should convince everyone of the urgency of a protection operation, instead of persevering in the ‘anarchic’ management that seems to be invoked by some members of the above categories.
It is felt that today, rather than talking about what the park takes away i.e. privileges and impunity, one should talk about what the park brings to the communities i.e:
protection of the extremely rich biodiversity of an area that for this reason was considered to be of considerable national interest and in need of specific and extraordinary management by the state law establishing the park;
– protection of the exceptional cultural heritage and landscape;
– guarantee of a serious defence of the territory and the communities living there from any attempts to install dangerous and highly impacting industrial plants both inside and outside the perimeter areas, such as manufacturing, recycling, chemical, wind energy industries, etc;
– revitalisation of a stagnant and recessive economy, through the promotion at national level of an area that is still marginal and poorly frequented, which will bring Central Molise into the national tourism arena, with positive effects not only on the entire agri-food chain but above all on trade, catering and accommodation;
– funding and investments channelled directly from the park to the territory, for restoration, enhancement, protection, compensation and various contributions. In this regard, it is perhaps worth remembering that in these years of culpable stagnation in the park’s establishment procedures, according to official estimates, for which we reserve the right to provide precise figures, the park territories have lost investments amounting to some EUR 18 million (in the same period, the Pantelleria park has received and spent as much as EUR 15 million).