Page 225 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

Cesare Patrone
Head of State Forestry Corps

I wish to start by saying thank you to the Carabinieri Corps, for the chance
they gave us to test and improve ourselves, to become stronger and to land after
a long, tiring and dangerous path. Thank you to the “Scuola Ufficiali” for their
efficiency, for their culture and for the style of their hospitality. Indeed, we have
reached a great depth in our Conference.

My special thanks go to the Commander General of the Carabinieri Corps,
Tullio Del Sette who received, encouraged, understood and listened to us, at
times with remarkable patience. His strong background in legal-administrative
issues has drafted a path which will lead us to a reform of particular value.

Thank you Commander.
After hearing the speeches of yesterday and of today, and after seeing those
images beautiful and horrible at the same time, I believe I have more reasons to
make some introductory remarks is view of the fact that environmental aware-
ness is something which is highly felt but, sometimes, not completely expressed.
Allow me to start from the UN Conference of 1992, in Rio de Janeiro,
where, rather interestingly, poverty, and not wealth, was identified as one of the
main causes of environmental degradation. Somehow, they came out of the
typical political idea of blaming western countries (as economically developed
countries), as main consumers of resources, energy, and environment. In other
words, the modern western democracies (broadly speaking) had an important
opportunity to create a modern developmental model which is compatible with
the safeguard of the environment.
We passed from a conservationist to a developmentalist approach: in
other words, we cannot protect the environment and have, at the same time,
the social approval without keeping those “conveniences” which the industrial
and materialist culture have already guaranteed.
Through the years the acknowledgement of a link between techno-scien-
ce and environmental awareness has been achieved: in this sense, the old con-
ception of a return to nature without innovations has been passed.

223