Page 93 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

Rossella Muroni
President, “Legambiente”

Good evening everyone! Thank you for this appointment. I think it is
important to underline, above all, the lack of continuity in meetings like this
which we have become accustomed to, and I believe it significant that the State
Forestry Department and the Carabinieri Corps decided to organize a confe-
rence of this nature. I think it also satisfies the requests made in recent months
by environmental associations to meet and exchange ideas about the future of
the State Forestry Department and the Carabinieri Corps. I would like to
highlight that this openness to dialogue and willingness to listen on the part of
two Corps with, naturally, different functions, histories and traditions is not
common: therefore it is for this that I would really like to express my thanks,
as I consider dialogue and discussion to be so important.

Mention was made of the eco-mafia earlier. We found the report of 1994
just recently, as we have written a book on the 21 years it took this country to
introduce eco-crimes into the criminal code and we found the hard copy of the
dossier, with the three printed logos: the logo of the Legambiente, the logo of
the Carabinieri and the logo of Eurispes. If you like, this could be a symbol of
how we should all work in this country: recognising differences and creating
synergies, exploiting to the full the features and the roles that each of us can
carry out. When we create synergy, I believe that the good, honest part of
society becomes invincible. Organised crime thrives where there is division,
where gaps exist, where loneliness leaves parts of society abandoned, making it
so easy for such criminals to take control. I believe that over the years the phe-
nomenon of eco-mafia has changed significantly. Dott. Pennisi is right when
underlining its evolution. The eco-mafia, that is organised crime, finds its real
source of business in environmental exploitation, even transforming itself into
company status. We have also mapped out profiles of the eco criminals and,
therefore, it is right to underline the change that took place on this front, but I
would argue that it is a change that we have been able to register as a result of
the work carried out by law enforcement agencies and by the judiciary who, for
years, by their own admission, had, essentially, blunt weapons at their disposal,

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