We share with great concern a videoby Paolo Piacentini highlighting serious violations and degradation in the Gran Sasso Monti della Laga National Park, particularly in the area of Jacci di Verre.
Regarding these events, we would like to make some clarifications:
- The activity is not sporadic but planned and scheduled at least for all weekends until the snow presence allows it. Moreover, even night outings with DJs and sound systems for impromptu moonlit parties are planned. To prevent this continuous disturbance, violating rules and regulations, Salviamo l’Orso and the Abruzzo Bird Observatory ONLUS have sent a report to the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park Authority, to the Forestry Carabinieri, and to the Environmental Evaluation Commission of the Abruzzo Region.
- The activity was well known to the Gran Sasso Monti della Laga National Park Authority, which had received a copy of the warning that CAI Abruzzo and CAI Marche had sent to the mayor in mid-December. The CAI’s warning had received media attention, but this did not prompt the park to shed light on the matter.
- In response to those who on other pages have invoked the right of some “poor” mountain people to make a living by organizing this activity, we quietly point out that a snowmobile costs no less than 15,000 euros. So, an association that owns several of them does not seem so “poor”… or not?
It would be interesting to know how the Park Authority can reconcile the recent proclamations of wanting to favour the arrival and expansion of the Marsican bear in the park with their management of the territory. Just think how much damage the episode that Piacentini witnessed in Jacci di Verre would have caused to a bear that might be present in the area at this delicate time, when females give birth. She would have been forced to leave her den hastily due to the noise and disturbance caused by the snowmobiles, thus abandoning her newly born cubs.