In the episode of Presadiretta broadcast on Monday 18 September at 21:15 on Raitre, Riccardo Iacona takes us to discover Italy's natural capital, explaining its value and highlighting the risks that threaten it.
A journey to discover our environmental heritage, through Italy's most beautiful forests and the natural parks that safeguard the resources most vital to our lives: air, water and land. This is the investigation by Presadiretta, the programme broadcast on Raitre, entitled Il capitale naturale, made by journalist and television presenter Riccardo Iacona, which reveals the secrets, the value and the need to defend Italy's biodiversity. The repeat of the episode is scheduled for Saturday 17 March 2018 at 21:30.
Woodland covers approximately one third of Italy's surface area and is home to a great variety of animal and plant species; it provides us with precious resources and is indispensable in the fight against climate change. One tenth of our territory consists of parks and protected areas, among which the Majella national park deserves special mention — located in the central Apennines in Abruzzo, it is home to more than two thousand species, including wolves, bears, deer and chamois. Iacona also ventured into the Casentino forests national park, an impressive expanse of trees straddling Emilia Romagna and Tuscany, where humans cannot enter freely and which shelters 500-year-old chestnut trees. "I hugged them. But in reality it was they who hugged me," the presenter told LifeGate. The view of the forest from above "is breathtaking: it feels like being in the Amazon," he assures. The incredible journey through Italian nature also stops in Sardinia, in the La Maddalena archipelago and in Cagliari, to admire the thousands of greater flamingos that populate the lagoons.
Of fundamental importance to Italy's natural capital are the country's numerous glaciers, most of which are relatively small in size, with the exception of the Forni glacier — the largest in Italy — located in the Stelvio national park. Unfortunately the glacier is melting at an alarming rate and, according to a study published in the journal of the Associazione interregionale neve e valanghe, its volume could decrease by 80 per cent by 2100, compared with 2007. "The footage I shot of this glacier melting is extraordinary. The water coming out of the glacier has given rise to a river. It is melting before our very eyes," said Iacona. Yet glaciers represent a fundamental water resource for Italy: without them there would be a serious problem, given that they supply 53 per cent of all the water that our system produces.
This summer our forests were put to the test by drought and wildfires: in a single month, more than 26,000 hectares of woodland burned, with Sicily being the worst-affected region. Together with glacier melt, pollution and urban sprawl, these represent serious threats to our natural capital which, as Davide Marino, a lecturer at the University of Molise, pointed out to Iacona, "also has considerable economic value, and its destruction would have concrete repercussions on our future".
Yet "we are not defenceless in the face of what is happening. We can still reverse course," argues Riccardo Iacona, who interviewed Vincenzo Balzani, coordinator of the Energia per l'Italia movement. The scientist stated that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy can be achieved more quickly. Even Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti said that the aim is to increase renewable energy consumption to 27 per cent by 2030.
The environmental issue is therefore a genuine priority, and it is for this reason that Iacona decided to bring it to prime time. "This business of natural capital is the subject. I think it is the issue of issues, even more important than the Mafia." A major economic chapter revolves around the development of renewable energies, but above all "the fate of our planet depends on future energy strategies and on how we treat natural capital over the coming decades, as does our most immediate future: what jobs our children will find, where they will have to move to, and how many millions of people will have to abandon certain parts of the Earth," the presenter concludes.
The Presadiretta episode featuring Riccardo Iacona's report "Il capitale naturale" was produced with the collaboration of Marco Piazza, Alessandro Macina, Antonella Bottini, Raffaella Notariale, Marcello Brecciaroli, Rebecca Samonà, Massimiliano Torchia and Andrea Vignali.
