La Spezia, 1 July 2024 – “Hands off Palmaria”. This is the banner that Legambiente’s Goletta Verde displayed while sailing on Sunday 30 June as it passed 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, regained after a long period of both civil and military anthropization” , say Legambiente. Il masterplan in question provides for a tourist 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 ultra-ten-year, seventy-year, assignment of the properties now owned by the State.
“The judicial investigation that has hit Liguria and also the Municipality of Portovenere in recent months – writes Legambiente – has demonstrated how many interests there are at stake on the part of lobbies, in connection with the public administration which has in fact distorted its role as a regulatory and planning body. We immediately rejected the master plan. With this blitz we reiterate that the island needs a new model that puts the environmental, historical and cultural vocations of the island at the center”.
