The intervention reported last week by various press outlets by the President Learned of Legambiente Campania, in relation to the declaration of notable public interest of areas in the Municipalities of Morcone and Santa Croce del Sannio, leaves us astonished by its gravity. It mocks the Ministry’s assessments, accusing it of “an unequivocal strategy of the Ministry of Culture MIC” against the installation of wind and solar energy production systems, dictated by political and “ideological” and not institutional reasons.
Now, the MIC, pursuant to the prerogatives established by the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, evaluates the areas of important importance such as natural and agricultural landscape, for the settlement system and for archaeological emergencies, and defines the safeguard rules, which exclude the possibility of industrial plants. In this case it is an area contiguous to the Matese National Park under construction, characterized by the passage of the Regio Tratturo Pescasseroli – Candela, continuing from the very nearby (6 and a half kilometres) Roman city of the Saepinum-Altilia sheep tracks, recently which became a national archaeological park, towards the Ligurian city of Bebiani in Circello and then towards Fortore and Puglia. Italia Nostra Campania and Lipu Campania also remind us that transhumance is considered an intangible heritage by UNESCO and that in the adjacent Molise we are preparing to invest 130 million euros in sheep tracks, with a national project for the protection and valorisation
Are we surprised that the MIC, on the basis of the archaeological map of the Benevento route of the Regio Tratturo and the municipality of Morcone, drawn up in 2010 by highly authoritative scholars, found cultural and landscape values in the area such as to make protection tools necessary? Furthermore, the area, in addition to two projects for a total of 12 wind turbines of over 200 meters a short distance from both sides of the Regio Tratturo, currently unauthorized and currently being evaluated due to the evident impacts, is also threatened by a proliferation of intensive farming (NB: close to the SIC area of the Tammaro river) and building interventions which worsen the value of the existing villages and the landscape; but strangely the environmentalist leader makes no mention of this.
In her fervor, the Campania president of Legambiente even revives the invention of wind turbine tourism which would be prevented here, advocating the need to create “alternative” energy plants without limits of time and place, while the country is finally engaged by the same European directives to identify “suitable areas” for RES. But you should also ask yourself whether quality and sustainable tourism is possible under the noise of wind turbines and close to intensive farming. Italia Nostra and Lipu hope that the position of the Legambiente leader will be denied. “It is unacceptable, and we would like to remind you that territories are not abstract concepts to be studied and modified at a table, but concrete places, in which man and nature, for millennia, have built landscape, culture and beauty” declares Massimo Maresca.
Massimo Maresca, President Italia Nostra Campania
Davide Iannelli, President Italia Nostra Matese Alto Tammaro
Giuseppe Longobardi, Lipu Campania Coordinator
Marcello Stefanucci, Provincial Delegate Lipu Benevento
