The aim of the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors initiative is to enhance human-bear coexistence in Italy, Greece, and further afield. The initiative’s well-attended first two public meetings, in the towns of Pettorano sul Gizio and Vastogirardi in the Central Apennines rewilding landscape, proved very positive and educational events.
A high participation of people characterized the first public event of the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors in the Bear Smart Community Genzana, the first to be established in Italy 8 years ago.
The two organizations have recently organized events dedicated to young people to address the theme of rewilding, the applications on the territory in the Central Apennines and discuss together the actions that people can put in place to increase the movement.
The initiatives of the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors project are as necessary as they are desirable in the areas of new expansion of the Marsican brown bear, such as Alto Molise. And here it is essential to meet the communities.
The operation of radio tagging a bear that has been regularly approaching Variko was successfully completed.
Still poison scattered in the lands of bears and wolves, in the central Apennines. Another criminal attack against wildlife, this time thwarted thanks to the presence on the territory and constant monitoring of the Rewilding Apennines team.
Recently, a local news website relating to the Gran Sasso area published a letter from one of its readers without first verifying the veracity of the content and, then, selecting the correct information. Since this letter concerns the presence of specimens of the Marsican brown bear in the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, many have questioned whether it could undermine the delicate process of peaceful coexistence between the local communities and the bear in the newly expanding territories of the species, which is also carrying out through the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors initiative.
The LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors project gets underway to meet the communities and ask: “Is it possible to live in an area where bears also live? And how?”
Why should we engage in regeneration of ecosystems, conservation of nature, reintroduction of animal and plant species and benefits for communities? Rewilding Apennines and the European Young Rewilders in the person of its coordinator Giulia Testa, will talk about what it means to deal with rewilding and what prospects this sector offers in a meeting dedicated especially to young people.
In recent days, the staff and volunteers of Rewilding Apennines and Salviamo l’Orso, during some monitoring and control activities carried out together with the Carabinieri Forestali and the Surveillance Service of the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, have found a total of the carcasses of nine wolves, five Griffon vultures and two Common ravens, all of whom died of poisoning.