Page 97 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

Marco Parini
President, “Italia Nostra”

Thank you. Allow me to join the other guests in saying thank you for
having invited me and to this meeting.

It would have been difficult to imagine the sort of meeting we are having
today when the environmentalist trend started, about 50/60 years ago, and,
above all, it would have been difficult to imagine the awareness which is the
base of this meeting. We were a group of idealists, coming from the war expe-
rience, who thought that, by improving our Country and creating a model of
development, a route for a positive post-war reconstruction could be found.

After these years that utopia is no longer the same. People have become
aware of the problems connected to their quality of health, and of the issue of
unauthorised development. In the Sixties several laws were approved: the
“Ponte” law, with regard to city planning, followed by what earlier was mentio-
ned by Mr Gaetano Benedetto and others. All this, after a long period of slow
activity, raised awareness in the Country with a series of laws. Let me quote
one: the “Merli” law on water.

However, I was stunned when I learned, while I was in Pescara, that
bathing is forbidden in a considerable part of its coast as a result of the waste
regularly brought by the river Pescara on the coast. We are now in a period of
new regulatory activity, and I think of the framework law on parks currently
being considered by the two Houses of the Parliament. I also think of the law
on the ground, on the issue of the containment of the agriculture ground ero-
sion – one more issue to face – which is subject to intense attention.

I believe that such awareness is following the right direction, at least in the
approach of people. With reference to cultural heritage it happens that in Italy,
a country made of national heritage, environment, landscape, through an ade-
quate use of these resources, we could reach a remarkable economic develop-
ment with the creation of many jobs. I’d like to quote the chance we have with
“La Piana di Sibari” (a level ground in the area of the province of Cosenza, in
the region Calabria): a fantastic place where only 10% of the huge archaeolo-
gical ground has been excavated.

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