This morning, at the bishop’s seat of Acerra, a meeting was held on the topic relating to the Land of Fires. Participating were the Prefect of Naples, Michele of Bari, the Prefect of Caserta, Giuseppe Castaldo, the Honorable Carmela Auriemma, member of the Parliamentary Commission of inquiry into illicit activities connected to the waste cycle and other environmental and agri-food offences, the Mayors of Acerra and Giugliano in Campania and the Associations of the inter-municipal and inter-institutional Council “Beyond the Land of Fires”, the Bishop of Acerra and the Bishops of all the other Dioceses involved, the Public Prosecutors at the Court of Naples North and Nola, the ‘In charge of combating arson of waste in the Campania region, the representatives of the Region and the Metropolitan City of Naples, of the Province of Caserta, of the ANCI, the representatives of the police forces of Naples and Caserta, the Regional Commander of Fire Brigade with the Provincial Commanders of Naples and Caserta and the Commander of the Campania Group “Safe Roads Terra dei Fuochi”. The Prefect of Naples represented that today’s meeting, agreed with Bishop Di Donna and the Prefect of Caserta, has the aim of developing the organizational mechanism to combat the serious phenomenon of waste fires about which much has already been done done from a preventive and repressive perspective, thanks to the action of the Judiciary, the police forces and the Church, each within their own sphere of competence, and which now requires further targeted interventions that take into account the changing scenarios, in the meantime intervened. The Bishop of Acerra, Di Donna, President of the Campania Episcopal Conference, highlighted the role played by the 23 Dioceses and the 2 Abbeys located in the territory of the so-called “Land of Fires”, through their closeness to the populations who complain about the harmful effects of pollution resulting from the fires on their health and on the liveability conditions of the context. He also underlined the importance of the report commissioned by the Prosecutor’s Office of Naples North on the causal link between pollution and the serious diseases spread in the area concerned, hoping for similar study initiatives in the remaining territories. He then illustrated the activities launched within the “Custody of Creation” initiative, promoted by the Italian Episcopal Conference in harmony with the other European churches, to reaffirm the importance, the Representatives of the Campania Region, the Metropolitan City and the Province of Caserta have fully reported on the initiatives financed by their respective offices to combat the phenomenon of waste fires as well as the further actions that will be implemented. At the end of the meeting, the Prefect of Naples summarized the main initiatives that will be taken. Given that the phenomenon of waste fires, despite having lost its original pervasiveness and diffusion, has taken on “specialist” characteristics, increasingly affecting the most profitable environmental crime chains (reuse of materials taken from waste or stolen goods, waste treatment or production systems focused on counterfeiting, adulteration or illicit placing on the market of foreign products), it is necessary to refine the contrast strategy, combining the continuous and widespread anti-spill surveillance with specific initiatives, acting in a broad-spectrum perspective that correlates the territories of origin and waste processing with spill waste, intercepting the transport routes, with the assistance of the inter-provincial Control Room, made up of all the institutional actors involved, and with the contribution of the devices offered by modern technology, such as video surveillance systems and drones. Specifically, 4 lines of action can be summarized:
– identification, by each municipality, of the types of spills with the greatest impact on the territory, with all the information collected by the local police and the Environment and Productive Activities Offices. The information must be transferred into a specific database, so that the usability of the data collected is guaranteed (concerning the nature of the waste, the dynamics and times of abandonment, the possible origin – even outside the municipality – the profile of those responsible, the transit routes and the types of vehicles whose use is hypothesized, the location and the presence of video surveillance systems of the spill areas and possible transport routes);
– definition of a calendar of joint operations by the local police and law enforcement agencies (so-called level II activities) with the contribution of the Army – Safe Roads – Land of Fires operations, to deal with the type of spill identified in the municipal office;
– implementation of joint actions (action days) on objective lists, with intervention concentrated on specific supply chains and spill phenomena, valorising municipal contributions and the results of reconnaissance carried out with level II activities;
– launch of awareness, information, monitoring and screening initiatives to protect health
of the young population, also with the involvement of associations present in the area.
The Prefect also announced that the Ministry of the Interior has allocated for the Municipalities of the interested area of Naples and Caserta, respectively, the sums of €930.00 and 570.00 for fixed-term employment and/or for overtime work. of local police personnel, an initiative that will contribute to increasing controls in the area.
Finally, he announced that further monitoring tables on the phenomenon in question, of a thematic nature, will shortly be convened by the Prefectures of Naples and Caserta in order to address the various critical issues with the participation of all interested institutional subjects, the Church and civic committees. .
