EDITORIAL
Let there be a stop to the misdeeds in Puglia by Flavia Pankiewicz
A
n unstable Spring, with frequent showers and cloudy days, unusual for this time of the year in Puglia, makes summer seem far away. But the heat and the seaside and the peak tourist season will be upon us in the blink of an eye. It’s particularly frustrating, therefore, for those of us who believe that a well-developed, sustainable and well-organized form of tourism could become the most precious powerhouse of the economy of the region, to read the local news in this period. Nine thousand tons of waste from Campania, burnt or illegally buried in former quarries, on farmland and even in protected areas near Foggia, BAT and also in Basilicata. Similar stories of illegally interred waste in some places in Salento. Of course it’s good that this has been discovered and that the wheels of justice have been set in motion to individuate sites and responsibilities and to prevent more devastation, but the appropriate public authorities are being requested very vigorously to thoroughly and swiftly decontaminate the areas in question, and then to broadcast the news via the media, which should then commit themselves to giving at least the same visibility to this as they have to the misdeeds.
But that’s not all. With the approval of the national government, more devastation is going to be carried out on the territory of Puglia. The vociferous protests of the “No Tap” demonstration of April 25th, on the beaches of San Foca, were in vain, while in the crystal-clear waters of the Melendugno shore, in the province of Lecce, the platform called Skate III, belonging to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, carried out the last tests to complete the documentation and give the go-ahead to the workings of a gas duct which will permanently scar a stretch of the Salento coast, against the will of the local population.
Apart from the under water gas pipelines there are also attempts to find oil threatening the delicate equilibrium of the seas surrounding Puglia. The President of the Regional Council, Onofrio Introna, replied thus to the mayors of Melendugno and Polignano a Mare who intervened with the Puglia Regional Authority to express their perplexity about the pipeline and about the search for oil being carried out in the Adriatic, opposite the Puglia coastline: “The gold of Puglia is our sea; our real energy is our environment. I compliment the two mayors from Puglia who in these past few days have defended the cause of the Adriatic, by answering “No” to the threats that oil searches and underwater pipelines make to the coasts. Palazzo Chigi – added Introna – must decide to provide the country with a National Energy plan, and if they think they should change the Constitution, let them try, and take the responsibility for the environment from the Regional Authority, but they should realize that excluding the local authorities will not suffice to change public opinion”.
The wave of tourists coming to Puglia is upon us. Let everyone take their own responsibilities to make sure this success is not a one-hit wonder.
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