Salviamo L’Orso stands alongside WWF and the SP64 Committee, which, in recent days, filed a formal objection against the appeal to the Pescara Regional Administrative Tribunal advanced by the municipalities of Roccamorice and Lettomanopello. The latter, in fact, are among the firm supporters of the bridge, which, should it be built, will be named Celestino V and will rise between SP 64 and SS 614.
Opposing the project – a rendering of which is circulating that also demonstrates its visual impact – is the Maiella National Park itself, which has repeatedly stressed that the infrastructure is not only expensive but also unnecessary and invasive. In an official statement, WWF also explained how “the intervention would fall within a Natura 2000 Network site, Special Protection Zone (SPA) Maiella National Park (IT7140129) and Zone B (General Oriented Reserve) of the Park Plan. The affected area is also subject to hydrogeological constraint and archaeological constraint, is protected by the Regional Landscape Plan (it lies within areas B1, targeted transformability, and A1, integral conservation), is close to a Very High Hazard zone, it is subject to Escarpment Hazard, and, most importantly, it is in Seismic Zone 1, that which, as stated on the website of the Civil Protection, Presidency of the Council of Ministers, is the most dangerous zone, in which the probability of a strong earthquake happening is high.”
It is disconcerting to learn how at such a delicate historical moment the Province of Pescara and the aforementioned municipalities are attempting to pass off the bridge project as a work of social and economic importance, strategic for the enhancement of the inland areas when, on the contrary, reality proves every day that the preservation of the region’s immense natural heritage is the only element capable of guaranteeing the long-term support of those who have chosen to stay and live in these places.
