Page 149 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

An idea for Italy facing the future: the green economy, legality, social cohesion

Hon. Ermete Realacci
President of 8th Commission Environment, Territory and Public Works

The reflection I was requested concerns the mission of Italy and how this
mission meets, at a certain point, the topic of environment: in other words, how
our answer to the crisis can be developed through quality, innovation, and green
economy rather than following more traditional routes. Taking into account the
location where we are, I would like to talk about the progress we have made so
far and what needs to be done in the sector of environmental legality.

All this while we are at a delicate junction regarding what today is consi-
dered, at the same time, a great potentiality and a risk: the creation of the most
important integrated territorial Corps for the safeguard of the environment in
a western country. On several occasions, with General Del Sette, we have
discussed the necessity to protect the professionalism of the State Forestry
Department and of the Carabinieri Corps in such a sector and to strengthen
their action on the territory: this is an extraordinary challenge. I would like so
much to come here in one or two years and say: “we won the challenge!”

How far have we walked in our path? I clearly remember that the term
“ecomafia” was used for the first time in this great hall, much earlier than in the
TV series “Gomorra”. The first report on environmental crimes, presented here
in the Scuola Ufficiali dei Carabinieri in 1994, created this neologism from which
“ecomostri”(ecomonsters) and “ ecoreati” (ecocrimes) followed: the definition
and introduction of environmental crimes into the Penal Code was achieved and
later we managed to have the law passed. Giving an adequate name to a pheno-
menon is fundamental in order to identify, understand and tackle it.

The route was not an easy one, and not just because certain “bad people”
impeded our procedure in order to protect their own interests, but because
environmental awareness of our Country was not ready for it. I want to be
frank: back then the step made by the Carabinieri Corps was crucial because
for a Judge handling environmental cases was a sort of second level investiga-
tion, both for its impact on the general public and for the penalties applicable.

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