In the days hot of the debate on the borders of the Portofino National Park, the discussion also embraced the financial discourse. Environmental protection goes hand in hand with the search for funds on the sidelines of the tight meetings between the 11 mayors concerned, those of the Municipalities indicated by the ministerial decree, who are looking for the right place to present a shared proposal to Minister Cingolani.
What are the resources of the Regional Park? And those of a national park? Is it worth having more funding in the face of tighter constraints? Questions that bring to the debate – ideological, above all – between mayors and stakeholders and that impose reasoning stripped from more or less “romantic” considerations, starting from numbers and figures.
“The 6 regional parks, from Ponente Ligurian Alps, Beigua, Antola, Portofino, Aveto and Montemarcello Magra-Vara, receive a total of 2 million and 800 thousand euros per year from the Liguria Region – explains Roberto Costa, regional coordinator of Federparchi – . The funds are distributed equally except for the Portofino Park, for which 800 thousand euros are allocated per year. Before it had more employees, while now the staff has been transferred to the Authority from the Region and thus funds have been freed up for the Park. An operation that is proving to be positive because it allows for the use of resources on the investment front ».
National Parks are funded by the Ministry of the Environment and Ecological Transition based on their size. The 5 Terre National Park, the smallest in Italy with its 3,860 hectares, says Costa, “goes 10 million a year of ordinary funds, to which are added those of the Parks for the Climate program, which will not suffer the dreaded cut 80 million euros, as confirmed by the ministry in July ». Francesco Olivari, former president of the Portofino Park for two terms, mayor of Camogli, one of the three current municipalities of the Park, together with Portofino and Santa Margherita, member of the Federparchi council, adds: “National Parks also receive funds from tenders, so for a park of 4-5 thousand hectares, 10-15 million per year can be obtained. A much higher figure than that which the Regional Park of Portofino receives from the Region, 800 thousand euros ».
The perimeter proposal, put forward by Olivari last January, started from the “5 Terre model”: «The Park of Portofino covers an area of 1,056 hectares. The Sic, Sites of Community Interest, entrusted to the Authority, are 797 hectares and the old cornices were 3,400 hectares ». Massimo Maugeri, representative of the associations in the Portofino Park Community, who in 2018, together with Ivo Carezzano, then a member of the Community, had forwarded a perimeter proposal to the Ministry of the Environment and Ispra, dusted off that hypothesis: a Portofino National Park of 4,650 hectares. A perimeter identical to that of 1986, which included the area between Chiavari and Camogli, including the sites of community interest with the sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie (the pine forest), in Chiavari, and that of Montallegro (the holm oak), in Rapallo.
A position of mediation between the 15 thousand hectares of the Ispra studio and the 1,056 of the current regional park which includes the municipalities of Camogli, Portofino and Santa Margherita, but also an area far from that established, albeit temporarily, by the ministry, for a National park with 11 municipalities, 5,363 hectares wide, after the ruling of the Lazio TAR which accepted the request of the lawyer Daniele Granara, president of the international association Amici del Parco di Portofino. The mayors of the “no” to the expansion and the hunters argue that the establishment of a National Park would bring further constraints, while the environmental associations, such as Tutti per il Parco, led by Alberto Girani, director of the Park of Portofino from 2003 to 2019, are convinced that the move will bring a series of benefits: “The resources for a National Park are only over ten times higher than the value with which the Liguria Region annually finances the Park of Portofino and other funds could come from European projects, in particular those dedicated to Green economy “.