GENOA, JUN 30 – ‘Hands off Palmaria’. This is the banner that Goletta Verde of Legambiente displayed today during navigation during the passage in front of the island of Palmaria. Located at the western end of the Gulf of La Spezia, the island in question is affected by an urban planning project called ‘Masterplan’ which, “if implemented, would nullify its naturalistic vocation – we read in the environmentalists’ note -, regained after a long period of both civil and military anthropization”. The master plan envisages a tourism development aimed at a medium-high level target which, in order to be economically balanced, provides for the direct sale to private individuals or the assignment of the properties now owned by the State for over ten years, seventy years. “The judicial investigation that has hit Liguria in recent months and also the Municipality of Portovenere (the former mayor of Portovenere Matteo Cozzani, former head of cabinet of governor Toti, is under investigation for corruption, ed.) has demonstrated how many interests there are are at stake by lobbies, in connection with the public administration which has in fact distorted its role as a regulatory and planning body – concludes the note -. Legambiente, which immediately rejected the master plan, with this blitz reiterates that the island needs a new model that puts the environmental, historical and cultural vocations of the island at the centre”.
