The revolt of the olive trees, this is how the Sardinians want to stop the Tyrrhenian Link submarine electrical cables

A human chain to stop deforestation to make room for the great work:citizens' committees move to safeguard the territory.

• Protests against the Tyrrhenian Link, a 970 kilometer underwater electricity connection that will connect Sicily and Sardinia to the mainland.
• After an olive grove was deforested in Selargius, Sardinia last week, citizens gathered in Quartu to physically block the work with a human chain.
• The protesters are calling for a meeting with the institutions, inviting the president of the Region to take a clear position.

According to Terna, the company that manages the Italian national transmission network with 75,140 kilometers of high voltage electricity lines, this is an infrastructure work of international importance, "another step forward towards a more sustainable energy future". According to the committees who strenuously oppose it, however, the Tyrrhenian Link, which will connect Sicily with Sardinia and the Italian peninsula through a double submarine cable approximately 970 kilometers long and 1000 MW of power, is instead of a disaster to be avoided at all costs.Even to the point of forming a real one human chain to save the Quartu pine forest, in the subdivision of Marina delle Nereidi in Terra Mala, where the Sardinian landing of the western section of the electricity corridor is planned (the other end would be located in Fiumetorto, Sicily).

Last week the epicenter of the clash was Selargius, just 3 kilometers inland where the trees of an olive grove had been cut;over the past weekend the committees moved to Quartu, to form a human chain that holds together, in a symbolic embrace, the stretch of sea of ​​Terra Mala.And to prevent the works under the slogan of “Su mari est su nostu!Backhoe loader in Foras”:this sea is ours, outside Terna".

What is the Tyrrhenian Link and what purpose would it serve?

A mobilization to stop the Tyrrhenian Link,a great work from value of 1.9 billion of the energy giant, half financed by the EIB, created - the committees underline - not to combat renewable energy, but speculation.The overall project includes two sections:the eastern one from Sicily to the peninsula and the western one from Sicily to Sardinia.The eastern section is capproximately 490 kilometres, connects the landing place of Fiumetorto in the municipality of Termini Imerese, in Sicily, to the landing place of Torre Tuscia Magazzeno in Battipaglia, in Campania.The western section, the one that affects Sardinia, is approxapproximately 480 kilometres, and always connects the Fiumetorto landing place to that of Terra Mala.

The protest of these days was called the revolt of the olive trees:“We reiterate the uselessness of the Tyrrhenian Link for Sardinia and the fact that it is functional for the export of energy to Italy” thunder the activists.Which rather underline the environmental aspects of the issue.“For days in vain we have been asking local and regional institutions to tell us where the trees uprooted in the night between Saturday night and Sunday morning ended up”, i.e. between 6 and 7 July, writes the No Tyrrhenian link committee:"For months we have been asking the President of the Sardinia Region Alessandra Todde to express her opinion on why Terna Spa continues its work, carrying out the expropriations, despite the fact that the public debate with the population did not take place and everyone was unaware of what was happening in the territory.She herself admitted that everything was carried out in contempt of the local communities and without their involvement."

The environmental impact of cables

And in turn the mayor and the municipal council of Quartu, underlines the committee “have not yet responded to the request presented by the committee for an open municipal council.We think that this silence is very serious in the face of a protesting community that presides over the Selargius countryside in defense of citizens who did not want to sell their land".The committees report that the Tyrrhenian Link will also be destroyed 9,600 square meters of posidonia, the aquatic plant which among other things contributes significantly to the absorption of CO2, and which will be placed hundreds and hundreds of easement restrictions on the properties of Quartise families unaware of being the subject of Terna's works as they were never informed.

So far the committees' battle has been supported by the population near and far from the territories in question, to the point that many ordinary citizens have responded to the appeals by donating and sending plants to reforest the countryside after the felling of the olive trees, and many others go there daily in the territories to lend a hand, or a hug as in the case of last weekend in Quartu.And to those who cannot be present, the committee makes a remote appeal:“Plant an olive tree on your land, in your gardens or in the gardens of your cities and send us the videos. We want new life to be created in the face of the death of our olive trees“.