Over a thousand farmers and breeders participated this morning in the garrison organized by Coldiretti at Pirellone to bring the problem of damage from wild boar and wildlife to the attention of the political world, asking for decisive action to cull and depopulate a species that risks causing serious damage to the agricultural fabric of Lombardy. The farmers are asking to begin a serious process of eliminating wild boars on the one hand to prevent swine fever from spreading, and on the other to prevent the worked fields from being destroyed by the excessive presence of animals.
“The Lombardy Region has demonstrated this will, if it is true that we have issued three ordinances that go in the direction of containment of invasive species. We are very worried both about the fate of the fields but also about the presence of swine fever in the areas affected.” The president of the Regional Council, Attilio Fontana, said this on the sidelines of the Coldiretti event organized on the occasion of the Regional Council meeting on the management of wildlife and the related damage caused to agriculture.
“In recent years – added the councilor for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Alessandro Beduschi, speaking together with President Fontana – the Lombardy Region has done more and better than anyone else to contain invasive wildlife and in particular wild boars. In the next few weeks we will adopt the extraordinary plan for the control of wild fauna, which in fact has already been concretely implemented, starting from 3 operational ordinances signed by governor Fontana”.
“The data – added Beduschi – tell us that from 2021 to today the capacity to contain wild boars has more than doubled and in 3 and a half years it has reached 46,000 killings, but it is also true that we have to come up against pockets of resistance from some provinces which, although financed by the Region to provide control activities also through private companies, in fact can definitely do more and better. The rules must be respected and anyone who does not do so will assume all the responsibilities of the case.”
In his speech from the stage set up by Coldiretti, councilor Beduschi recalled that the latest order from the Lombardy Region, in force since Saturday, is a concrete response to facilitate the fight against wild boars with fewer bureaucratic, procedural and resource management constraints economic and that since 2019 over 13 and a half million have been invested in damage prevention and compensation activities.
“The people of the primary sector – concludes councilor Beduschi – today with the usual concreteness expressed their concern, which we make ours, in defense of the crops threatened by wildlife but also of the pig herd that we must defend from Swine Fever. Exploitation, even political, is of little use. Everyone’s mission is to fight an anomaly that has stratified over time, resulting in the presence of almost 2 and a half million animals in unsuitable areas in areas where they have never historically been”.
“There is great attention on the part of the Lombardy Region to the phenomenon of damage from wild fauna, in particular from wild boars” declares Regional Councilor Michele Schiavi (FDI) present at the event, “The Region has invested significant resources in this, thanks also to the great work and the attention of Councilor Alessandro Beduschi, however the continuous increase of these animals and the damage caused by them requires a clear change of pace in the approach to this problem that involves all interested parties. In this sense, the requests put forward in the demonstration by the Coldiretti association, aimed not only at protecting our farmers and their economy, but also at guaranteeing Lombard citizens more safety on the roads, preventing the numerous accidents, including fatal ones, that occur on our territory, and finally to prevent and resolve the increasingly widespread health emergencies, such as ASF, are fully shared. The Lombardy Region has already implemented all the tools envisaged by the National Extraordinary Plan for some time, ahead of schedule given the situation due to the entry of the PSA into the province of Pavia. The topic of wildlife management today no longer concerns only mountains and countryside: every day the media and social networks show us how these animals have now reached the cities and the most populated areas. The commitment of the institutions in this situation must be aimed only at compensation for damage to businesses, but also at promoting constant collaboration between the primary sector, local authorities and the hunting world in the prevention of the damage itself through the increase of culling of wild boars and other invasive species”.
