The organizations Salviamo L’Orso, WWF Lazio, and Mountain Wilderness have warned the Lazio Region against granting any extension of the authorization that the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee had issued for the Terminillo Stazione Montana project. News of the request for an extension—or for the renewal of the positive Environmental Impact Assessment opinion—came to light thanks to media reports, which noted that none of the requirements set forth in the positive opinion authorizing the project’s activities had ever been initiated or verified for compliance within the timeframes established by law. Therefore, as of today, the opinion itself is set to expire on December 31.
The “Terminillo Stazione Montana” project is a tourism development plan that calls for new ski facilities, infrastructure, and urban development projects on Mount Terminillo, with the goal of revitalizing winter tourism and transforming the area into a major ski resort after it had fallen into obscurity for years—even among weekend skiers coming mainly from Rome and the surrounding areas.
The project to revitalize and build new infrastructure is considered harmful to the environment because it involves the deforestation of natural areas, habitat fragmentation, and high water and energy consumption, especially for artificial snowmaking. In particular, the organizations are concerned both about the planned clearing of 17 hectares of beech forest and about the reduction of the Marsican brown bear’s habitat, which, as we know, is already struggling with the fragmentation and loss of its habitat. Added to this is the economic unsustainability of the new facilities, which, located at elevations below 1,900 meters, risk being of limited use due to snow cover that is becoming increasingly sparse year after year. Furthermore, Terminillo is a delicate mountain ecosystem, rich in biodiversity, already threatened by climate change: investing in traditional skiing in an area with increasingly scarce snowfall risks being unsustainable and harmful, as well as potentially attracting mass tourism that could cause lasting environmental damage that would be difficult to reverse.
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Cover photo: Rieti Border