• A few days ago, 50 hooded individuals damaged the Monte Giogo wind farm construction site on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, in the name of protecting the mountain.
• According to Marco Duranti, president of Legambiente Firenze, they are antagonists "who have misunderstood the project: doing nothing means putting yourself in the hands of multinationals".
• Once completed, the wind farm is expected to produce around 80 gigawatt-hours of clean energy per year, while critics contest its impact on flora and fauna.

"Calling them environmentalists is out of place. The press is confused too: they call them environmentalists against wind turbines, but those who oppose renewables on ideological grounds have not grasped what is at stake." A few days have passed since the raid by 50 hooded individuals, self-styled activists defending the mountain, who sabotaged vehicles at the Monte Giogo wind farm construction site on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, threatened workers, and caused damage estimated at several million euros. A raid that, despite having been strongly condemned by the Alleanza fiorentina per la giustizia ecologica, climatica e sociale, risks tarnishing the image of the environmentalist world as a whole: Marco Duranti, president of Legambiente Firenze, one of the associations within the alliance, helps us untangle the threads and distinguish between "ideological environmentalists" — as the ruling majority also often labels them, painting everyone with the same brush — "and those of us who, like me, base our positions on scientific data".

Radio Italia Cina @radioitaliacina

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⚡️ TERRORISMO AMBIENTALE
50 incappucciati con coltelli assaltano cantiere eolico Monte Giogo di Villore (#Mugello).
12 mezzi distrutti, operai minacciati e costretti alla fuga.
Procura #Firenze apre per TERRORISMO. Antiterrorismo già al lavoro.
#Mugello #Eolico #Terrorismo

9 lug 2025 · Apri su X →

The Monte Giogo wind farm must be built

According to Duranti, the Villore Monte Giogo project is by no means far-fetched: "Wind power is necessary, and obviously it has to go where the wind blows. The ridgelines are the windiest part of Tuscany, along with offshore sites, of course. That is why this location was chosen. It wasn't placed there by chance." The president of Legambiente Firenze defends the underlying principle: to genuinely tackle the climate crisis, he says, a paradigm shift in energy production is needed. "Today 75 per cent of the CO2 emitted comes from the use of fossil fuels. If we want to mitigate climate change, we must invest in clean sources. And wind power, like it or not, is a fundamental asset. You cannot think of making the transition using only photovoltaics, or hydropower, or geothermal energy. Renewables need to be integrated, also because they complement each other seasonally: in some seasons there is more sun, in others more wind."

We are talking about a wind farm — as all the environmental associations in favour of the project are keen to point out — that was agreed upon at length with local communities, and which once completed will produce around 80 gigawatt-hours of clean energy per year, avoiding climate-altering emissions equivalent to 40 million kilograms for every year of operation, a figure equal to the absorption capacity of more than 1.3 million trees. But those who carried out the assault, according to Duranti, are "a mix of local residents and antagonists — let's call them that — who have not understood the project. They need to grasp that if you contest wind power in the name of the purity of the mountain landscape, if you attack the transition, the alternative is fossil fuel multinationals."

A cultural clash as well

There is, in truth, a strong current of opinion deeply critical of the Monte Giogo wind farm: according to the Comitato crinali liberi, for instance, it represents an environmental disaster because it involves the felling of centuries-old beech forests, the concreting over of the Solstretto stream — habitat of protected species such as the spectacled salamander and the river crayfish — and the impact on migratory fauna and bats, as well as the destruction of 14 kilometres of national and European trails in an area of high natural value on the borders of the Parco delle foreste casentinesi.

Pressenza in italiano @Pressenza_it

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Sul monte Giogo di Villore Corella non è green: è disastro ambientale #CrinaliAppenninici #EolicoIndustriale #MonteGiogo #Mugello pressenza.com/it/2025/07/sul…

♥ 1 5 lug 2025 · Apri su X →

For Duranti, the attack is not only physical but also cultural. "It is an ideological approach, that much is true, based on ideas with no scientific grounding. But if we do not act, the very landscape they are defending today will be transformed beyond recognition by climate change. It is already happening: it is in the news these very days that the wildflower bloom at Castelluccio di Norcia has disappeared. Just look at the floods that have struck Tuscany and Emilia. And crops will change too, as temperatures rise. Climate change is coming, and it certainly won't apologise." Even on the visual impact of wind turbines, contested as a blight on the landscape, Duranti invites a broader reflection: "It's not as if high-voltage pylons are any prettier, but by now we've had them in front of our eyes forever and they no longer bother us…" And he throws down a challenge: "For me, renewable energy infrastructure should be visible. Certainly well integrated into quality projects, like the one at Monte Giogo — not haphazardly, as has unfortunately happened elsewhere — but visible. Because this is progress: nobody complained when pylons were erected, because people knew they were a sign of the future. That cultural leap still hasn't happened."