Page 143 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

The tools of knowledge and technological innovation in support of
regulation and environmental controls

Bernardo De Bernardinis
President, ISPRA

In my speech, first of all, I wish to clarify the role of ISPRA (Higher
Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) within the Sistema
Nazionale per la Protezione Ambientale (National System for Environmental
Protection). The National System of Environmental Control Agencies origina-
tes, for the first time, within the ISPRA 123 Regulation of 2010. Originally it
wasn’t referred to in such terms, that is to say the National System did not have
a legal denomination.

The whole System is governed by the Consiglio Federale (Federal
Council) which is the co-ordinating body chaired by the President of ISPRA,
who is not representing ISPRA. Instead it represents the Council since ISPRA
is represented by its Director General. The Federal Council has a rather intense
techno-scientific activity which develops in a three-year programme in which,
for example, 2000 people are currently working, both from ISPRA and from
the Agencies. It is a three-year programmes in which ISPRA works for the
National System.

What is the role of ISPRA? When I was entrusted with the presidency I
ended up taking three confluent Bodies. Actually I took four as the former
ANPA (Italian National Agency for Environmental Protection) was included.
It was connected to a moment of the past, in other words to the Multi-area
Centres from a health point of view and to the industrial processes more than
to any other form of contamination and pollution which we experience today.

I give you an immediate example: earlier we heard a speech about biodi-
versity, about alien species, invasive species. These are things made for intellec-
tuals. However, when we refer to Xylella fastidiosa, perhaps we begin to under-
stand that these are not things made for intellectuals.

When we talk about the eco-systemic role of biodiversity, in the same way
we do about forests, we end up quantifying them, for example, in 6 Euro per

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