environment

After having conducted an investigation that shed light on the presence of PFAS - poly and perfluoroalkyl substances - in the drinking water of dozens of municipalities throughout Piedmont, in recent days the Greenpeace Italia association has officially presented four complaints to the Turin Prosecutor's Office, Ivrea, Alessandria and Novara, asking the judiciary to take "all the necessary precautionary measures" in order to "prevent the continued administration of waters containing PFAS”.In the complaint, Greenpeace urged the magistrates to ascertain whether, considering the state of permanent pollution of the areas in question, "the conditions exist to hypothesize crimes of environmental or unnamed disaster", as well as "omission of official acts resulting in failure to comply with the legislation on access to documents".Despite the insight that emerged from the Greenpeace investigation, in recent days the Health Councilor Luigi Icardi has tri...

There are deep-sea corals that could be at least a thousand years old, sponges, sea urchins, amphipods and lobsters:on seamounts located off the coast of Chile More than 100 potential new species have been discovered that could be unique in the world.The credit goes to an international team of researchers who, led by Javier Sellanes, full professor of Marine Sciences at the Universidad Católica del Norte, created breathtaking photos and videos that already seem destined to pique the attention of scientists in the coming months.The team explored seamounts along the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges with the aim of collecting data that could support future protected area designation and the Juan Fernández and Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks.A robot capable of descending to a depth of 4,500 meters was used to collect data from 10 mountains located below sea level, discovering that each “hosted diverse ecosystems, many of them vulnerable, including thriving deep-se...

In Kenya, in the Nile basin, farmers in the village of Sitati are developing agroforestry projects to replace the more widespread sugarcane monocultures.The goal is to revitalize the land, diversify diets and incomes and increase the water levels on which many animals depend.This creates "food forests", which attract a series of wild animals - such as the Nubian shell turtle in danger of extinction - and redevelop wetlands and river systems.The technique, in particular, changes the way the community manages agriculture and the environment, predicting the intercropping between different food crops – such as cereals, orchards, vegetables, tubers – and non-productive grasses and trees.For example, a mix of crops such as banana, sweet potato, hibiscus, papaya, avocado, chilli pepper that grow among native wild trees such as the silver oak is common.The result is a bushy-looking vegetable garden that attracts and protects various species of wild animals an ecosystem th...

The European Union Parliament has definitively approved the agreement reached with the Member States on the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).The votes in favor were 393, 173 against and 49 abstentions.The IED Directive is an essential rule to prevent pollution at source from approximately 50,000 European industrial plants.However, the process was rather troubled:the law has in fact had to overcome various obstacles that have weakened it from time to time.Until the end, for example, the most conservative groups attempted to further loosen the constraints on intensive farming, but in the end the majority of MEPs adopted the agreement negotiated last November which, however, provides already important concessions to the most impactful livestock farms.At present, the law extends measures on industrial emissions to pig farms with more than 350 heads of livestock, while companies that raise them extensively or organically are excluded.For poultry, the directive applies to...

Despite the impetuous and participatory protests of farmers throughout Europe which have been taking place since January, the European Parliament yesterday officially adopted the first Nature Restoration Act with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions.The Law, which provides for restore at least 20% of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems of the EU by 2030 and the almost total restoration by 2050, was supported by the entire centre-left spectrum of the European Parliament, while it was opposed by conservative parties, in particular by the EPP (European People's Party), within of which only 25 MEPs out of a total of 177 voted in favor of the law.The latter constitutes an important pillar for achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and their elimination by 2050.However, farmers see the newly approved legislation, the Green Deal and the CAP (European Agricultural Policy) as one threat to their livelihood a...