Trees felled in Piano di Sorrento, the M5S presents a complaint to the Public Prosecutor's Office against the Municipality
The MPs Carmen Di Lauro and Virginia La Mura and the municipal councilor of Piano di Sorrento Salvatore Mare have filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office of Torre Annunziata and the territorial Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Auditors against the Municipality of Piano di Sorrento for the indiscriminate cutting of trees without preventive assessments and with procedures that do not comply with current legislation. Specifically, the Municipality of Piano di Sorrento has had access, after a tortuous bureaucratic process that required some measures for anomalies reported by the WWF, to funds from the Metropolitan City of Naples for the increase of urban greenery. Yet in the municipal resolution the words “increase in greenery” disappear in the face of “Interventions to replace and replant municipal trees”. And in fact two pine trees were cut down in two locations in the Municipality, not to mention the planting of new trees carried out in an inappropriate manner which in many cases led to their collapse or drying out. The two pine trees were cut down without documented reasons; in the case of the majestic pine tree over 70 years old in the popular complex on Via Bagnulo, the expert report was filed three days after it was cut down. In the other case, however, that of the pine tree in the Parco delle Mimose, the filed report does not present any photos that demonstrate the state that would have made emergency felling necessary. Photos taken by Councilor Mare that demonstrate how it would have been appropriate and necessary to check and investigate the state of the tree before indiscriminately cutting it down. "Beyond the scant report, filed after the demolition and even lacking photos, the statement made by the responsible municipal official, architect Cannavale, during the debate on the question in the Council, left me perplexed," states City Councilor Salvatore Mare (M5S). "In fact, according to the official, 'If the project manager finds other critical issues within the project, it is precisely within the discretion of the project manager to carry out this type of intervention.'" In essence, the Metropolitan City would finance the discretionary power of an agronomist, without the possibility of cross-examination." “Trees are monuments and should be treated as such,” explain M5S parliamentarians La Mura and Di Lauro. The careless felling of trees has been a practice for too many years and is still being perpetuated today. It is no longer tolerable, especially when implemented by public bodies and with funds aimed at increasing urban greenery, not reducing it. The current national legislation, which also with ministerial funds aims at planting new trees in densely populated municipal areas throughout Italy, goes in this direction and this is why the complaint presented was also sent to the Minister of the Environment Sergio Costa. This isn't the first time this has happened on the Sorrento Peninsula. Kudos to those who monitor and take action every day to stop these atrocities."
