Caserta Roads have always ended with these backgrounds, cave-like glimpses of mountain gorges, the landscape in which you have used for too long. It should not be always so, but for those who are younger than that age and quarrying, for people born and raised here in the last twenty-five years, that view has slowly eroded the measure of things to think about until it was always so.
The young have no memory of different landscapes as well as it has become difficult to imagine different futures. The memories made intrasmettibili image of older people were slowly excavated, stone by stone, leaving only twenty-five years, without identity or territory.
Scavo after excavation, Caserta and municipalities are now Tifatini the hills flanking the image of the massacre: "In 1954 the quarry areas in the chain of mountains were just Tifatini eighty-seven hectares out of a ' extension of nearly fifteen thousand. Today, in the city of Caserta, the areas affected by mining activities amounted to about one thousand acres, thirty-six football fields destroyed and removed from the community each year. " Environmental NGOs Caserta remembered him as early as 2005, a proposal document for the establishment of the urban park the "hills Tifatini. He breathed optimism aftermath of an investigation which the Olympic projects initiated by the Judiciary in 2004 and ended in the first degree in 2008 with the "crime does not exist."
The investigating judge of the court in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Antonio Pepe, sent home the eleven defendants in the trial of the deputy prosecutor born Donato Ceglie investigation that led to several arrests among the Cavaiola and total blockade of the quarries that surround the area between Caserta and Maddaloni. Destruction of entire mountains, unpaid royalties, land reclamation miss, forgery, corruption, damage to health, environmental disaster, but "the fact there is."
"an offense to the intelligence" was the reaction hot pressing pm, Donato Ceglie and Paul Albano, now on appeal. The same strategy is repeated now as then: to systematically apply laws are not written in exact opposition to the provisions for land reclamation, landscape conservation, hydro-geological risks, the health of citizens, protection of the territory. A judge who does not want to hear, a territory that pretends not to see, but who knowingly suffers: the script you are playing is well established in the last twenty years that has literally disappeared in the mountains due to a 'mining perpetrated grossly falsifying authorizations, orders of service, explosives, maps, plans in order to get illegally. The actors past and present politicians are Cavaiola and represented by the Mayor of Maddaloni Michele Farina, from Province and Municipality of Caserta, from Civil Engineers, on ' Forestry Authority, the Authority Basin of north-western region of Campania and Cementir Caltagirone Group Ltd with his lawyers.
In November 2007 Cementir Ltd has made application to the Civil Engineers of Caserta for approval of a draft "environmental reclamation and cultivation in enlargement" , with a break, hanging on a site in the town on the eastern side of Maddaloni Mount St. Michele. The draft "environmental recovery in expansion" is divided into four lots for a total duration of twenty years.
After more than a year of service conferences managed by the same Civil Engineers of Caserta, who was described as "armed and illegally operated in the interests of controlled" by prosecutors delll'Operazione Olympus March 2 held its fifteenth Conference of services, and soon to be held next, to approve at all costs the continuation of mining activity for the group of Francesco Caltagirone, owner also Morning Caserta . The fanciful idea of \u200b\u200benvironmental restoration, to be made by extending the quarry will be realized in the opening of a further huge chasm on the east side of Hill St. Michele just behind the Bridge of the Valley, by engineering Vanvitelli who supplies water the Reggia di Caserta UNESCO World Heritage since 1997.
To become aware of the situation in the environment where the landscape you have to climb Caserta becomes the best visual synthesis of the territory. From the top of S. Michele the area is a great Gruyere hills literally ripped open by blows of dynamite, deep, up to show nerves of white rock that grinds his teeth. The slow erosion has become apparent immobility, leaving the viewer indifferent landscape from afar. We need to climb, touch the limestone cliffs, white pants get dirty with dust, get there at the top where you can view it all to turn the background into stark reality. In more than twenty years been an illegal war waged against the territory covering the municipalities of San Prisco, Casagiove, the villages of San Clemente, Thirteen, Garza, Centura, Park Cerasola of the town of Caserta, and numerous sites of the town of Maddaloni . 'S impressive extension of the quarries of white visible on Google maps , assumes the extension of reality when observed closely. The immense Cava Victoria, subject to enlargement "aimed at environmental restoration," above you no chance to reply.
I decide to climb on top of leaving behind the quarry and cement Moccia Cava Iuliano , through Park Cerasola known Cava of Saint Lucia, now converted into parking for the faithful of the church on Sunday rescued from the bulldozers. Through the valley of gauze and its quarries to "meteorite impact, between views of lush countryside and hills skinned, imagining what could have been, was not, until you reach the entrance to the sanctuary of St. Michael. This site pilgrimage now surrounded by quarries, literally on the brink of the precipice, is perhaps the last outpost of human civilization that still stands up here. It will remain perhaps a cross in memory of the mountain symbol of a civilization by now dug into.
Why not matter if there are a hydrogeological constraint, a constraint for a good landscape UNESCO and will not be respected, no matter if there is a constraint to reforestation and the trees will be killed, no matter if the area was covered by fire and could not carry out any activity for fifteen years, no matter if the clinic building will never function as long as in quarries and cement plants will be active if the Cavaiola has been ordered to relocate and do not, if the area has been adopted by the Regional Plan for the highly critical and Mining Activities you continue to dig, no matter if all are colluding to destroy even the last things left.
What matters today is that the Quarry Victoria has devoured the mountain, leaving huge steps that lap the way now tip of the mountain. A sign repeats threat of punishment does not exceed the reporting of offenders. What matters today is that looking at all the surrounding asks you to say enough to those who want to continue as before, as always, since I was born.
* This article first appeared in the journal Neapolitan Monitor
