Page 111 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

lead to solutions that are not totally “logical”, or not effective and not certainly
because of the Police Forces. We must, in any case, be positive for the future
and therefore work for a solution that will lead to greater effectiveness.

Applying the regulations on the importation of timber (EUTR) – in which
Italy is very late - can constitute an important test bench for a new institutional
framework. If we want to contrast effectively the chain of violence that in those
countries is also connected to exploitation and deforestation, we must intercept
those influxes here, trace them and then block them. Otherwise, when we manage
to convince companies to operate in a correct, therefore socially responsible man-
ner, they might find themselves competing with operators who take advantage of
the lack of efficient controls, therefore enjoying an unfair competitive edge. So we
find ourselves in a situation of inequality in which those who operate incorrectly
are, de facto, favoured by a system based on ineffective or even inexistent controls.

My concern is that we cannot be the top of the class and announce, like
Minister Martina did, that we will organise an international conference on
forests in 2021 in Italy when our country, after 3 years, still hasn’t implemented
the EUTR regulations.

In this perspective, the fragmentation of competences that we can see
moving forward with the possibility of breakup of the CFS (State Forestry
Department) certainly is not a good sign, as Gaetano Benedetto of the WWF has
already noted. It is exactly the experience of working against mafia that tells us how
we should proceed, giving more unity and coherence to our repressive actions(1).

I don’t believe that only one institutional: solution exists; but there must
be a control room aiming at the efficiency of the institutional framework, thus
avoiding duplications or a situation that generates competition - which, in a non
unified framework becomes natural - between different police forces.

I think that the task of the politicians is to create a reliable institutional
framework so that the resources and the skills of the different Police Corps
may effectively help the country to go forward in the right direction and make
a positive contribution to the protection of the environment both at national
and international level. Thanks for your attention

(1) - This is confirmed by the recent UNEP and Interpol recommendations on the environmental
crimes in “The rise of environmental crime”.

109