WWF Foggia announces with satisfaction the acceptance of the appeal for access to environmental information pursuant to Legislative Decree no. 195/2005, presented following the failure of the Gargano National Park Authority to respond to requests for information on the status of the approval process of the Park Plan, the Regulation and the Multi-year Economic and Social Plan, provided for by the Framework Law on Protected Areas .
The request, forwarded by WWF Foggia in June 2023 and reiterated in November, aimed to obtain greater transparency and clarity regarding the planning and management processes of the Gargano National Park, fundamental elements for the protection and enhancement of the natural heritage of the Promontory, considering that almost thirty years after its establishment, the protected area is still without its planning tools, while the other Apulian national park, that of Alta Murgia, has completed the process years ago, despite its establishment being much more recent.
Having not received any response from the Park Authority, WWF Foggia presented an appeal to the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
The Park Authority, resisting the appeal, justified its refusal with the fact that the planning and programming tools of the protected area have an approval process divided into several and distinct rather complex steps divided into several phases which involve several entities including which also include the Puglia Region and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, as well as many stakeholders>> and that from an examination of the request for access to the documents in the terms formulated by the WWF of Foggia it is not clear at what stage of the aforementioned process refers and what would be the environmental reason, constituting in the opinion of the writer not exactly an environmental interest falling within the case provided for by Legislative Decree 195/2005>>. In other words, according to the Park Authority, since the process is complex, it is not possible to explain what stage it is at.
The Commission’s opinion was of a different opinion and, recognizing the legitimacy of the WWF’s requests and the Park Authority’s failure to comply with transparency obligations, accepted the appeal and formally invited the Gargano National Park Authority to provide the information requests that, hopefully, the Park Authority will now want to provide without posing further specious obstacles.
Unfortunately – says Maurizio Marrese, President of WWF Foggia – the Gargano is governed by a Park Authority that does not communicate with its community. President Pasquale Pazienza, isolated in his “sand castle”, organizes closed conferences where he praises and congratulates himself, without accepting questions, while the Gargano community remains helpless in the face of a National Park without a Board of Directors for four years and without a Director for almost twenty. For some time now the Gargano Park has abandoned its institutional aims of conservation and valorisation of the natural heritage, preferring to beautify squares or finance events such as a proloco or a tourism department, thus betraying its main mission of becoming a model of sustainable development for the territory.
This result represents a significant victory for administrative transparency and environmental protection. WWF Foggia appeals to the Park Community and regional politics asking for maximum attention and concern for a now “ghost” Park, where citizens only see constraints rather than the protection of the territory and the opportunities for economic and tourist development that the area protected should offer.
The WWF will continue to ensure that all competent institutions respect citizens’ rights to access environmental information, essential for participatory and sustainable management of the territory. However, all the bitterness remains in having to note that an environmental association is forced to resort to legal action against a Park Authority to obtain simple information, when it should be the Authority itself that takes care to let the whole community know what the only obstacles are which, after thirty years, still prevent the Gargano from having its Park Plan.
