Page 161 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

A new economic framework to improve environmental protection

Hon. Alessandro Bratti
President of Parliamentary Commission for Inquiry on illegal activities in the
cycle of waste and environmental crimes

First of all, I should like to thank and compliment the organizers of this
initiative, both the Carabinieri and the State Forestry Department, as I believe
that this is the right way to begin the highly complex process of the fusion of
these two important police forces. Unlike the previous speaker, who expressed
the uncertainties and difficulties regarding the question, I believe that this ope-
ration represents an opportunity of immense potential.

When speaking of environmental legitimacy, not only do we tackle the
issue of how to defend the greater good of the “environment”, we must also
define a system which enables our more innovative economy to assert itself in
a global market. This is a fundamental theme which many policy makers are still
not aware of. Environmental protection is still considered a brake on progress
rather than a primary element of synergy for development. This, I believe, is
the most important cultural battle to win, in which police forces will be the pro-
tagonists, above all in the application of new legislation.

I would like to examine in depth some issues regarding both the precious
work carried out by your forces and by our legislators. As you know, I preside
over an inquiry commission which has been endowed with as many powers as
those given to the judiciary, apart from some, of course, including those restric-
ting personal freedom.

I would refer back to some considerations expressed by the magistrate
Roberto Pennisi when illustrating the meaning of environmental crime today.
Beginning with the latest report of the Legambiente on the ecomafia, it emer-
ges that an important element in determining a whole series of environmental
crimes, and therefore aggression against the greater good of the environment,
is constituted by the two-way rapport between environmental crime and cor-
rupt public administration, rather than by association with the Mafia which is
often present in the issue involving the region Campania, in particular between

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