Mafia hand suspected as Italy battles wildfires

ROME — Italy’s organized crime syndicates are in the frame for the ferocious wildfires that have devastated the country's southern regions.

As Southern Europe grapples with one of the worst heat waves in recent decades, hot winds and dry conditions have fueled wildfires that have killed at least five people and millions of wild animals in Italy.

While climate change and poor management of woodlands are contributing factors, environmentalists, campaign groups and farmers suspect mafia involvement — with possible motivations stretching from lucrative reforestation contracts to the repurposing of land for solar panels.

As Italy receives the first tranche of the European Union's post-pandemic economic recovery fund of €209 billion in grants and loans, criminal organizations are looking to benefit from the funds allocated to the green transition.

The fires have swept through 120,000 hectares of land in Italy so far this fire season, about three times the annual national average.

Much of the damage has been in national parks, including ancient UNESCO-protected beech forest in the Aspromonte national park in Calabria, which will need at least 15 years to recover, according to farmers' union Coldiretti.

Around 70 percent of fires are triggered by humans, according to Minister for the Green Transition Roberto Cingolani, with only 2 percent the result of natural phenomena such as lightning strikes. The fires are started "maliciously, in most cases," he told parliament earlier this month.

Those who benefit financially from the fires have historically included part-time firefighters paid by the hour as well as private companies of firefighting plane and helicopter fleets — and those who want to convert land for development or pasture.

Italy has tried to stamp out the latter as a motivation for arson. A law passed in 2000 banned changing woodland to pasture for 15 years or for building development for 10 years following a fire, but the legislation's effectiveness is dependent on poorly resourced local councils keeping a list of fires updated, which has been done patchily at best.

Although there has never been an in-depth countrywide investigation, the mob's hand in wildfires has long been suspected because of their tight control of the territory and use of fire as an instrument of retaliation and intimidation, including in land disputes.

While scientists say that global warming is making heat waves more frequent and intense, contributing to conditions that make it easy for flames to spread, high temperatures are generally not enough to spark a fire.

And given 80 percent of wildfires and 55 percent of wildfire-related crimes are concentrated in regions that are mafia strongholds, it's little surprise that locals are suspecting mob involvement.

“People try and say that it’s because it's hotter and rains less, but that’s nonsense,” said Enrico Fontana, one of the leaders of the NGO Legambiente, which documents environmental crimes committed by mafia groups. “The claims that all these fires are because of nature, lack of management and pyromaniacs is simply not credible. How many pyromaniacs can there be?”

It’s not always clear what the mobsters' motivations are, he admitted. “But to destroy natural habits in this way, you have to have a complete lack of care for the environment and nature, which is characteristic of these organizations,” he said.

Vincenzo Linarello, a farmer and spokesman for Goel, a consortium of farmers who have banded together against the mafia in Calabria, said it was unthinkable that the 'Ndrangheta mafia based in that region could be extraneous to the fires.

“To think that a fire of this kind, set at many different points, with the clear intention to burn all of Aspromonte, can happen without their collaboration or consent, is impossible," he said. "Either they have lost control of the territory, which is too good to be true, or they are directly responsible, or have given permission."

Fontana agreed: “If you look at the police map showing where the mafia has greatest control over the territory and the map of fires, you have to have some suspicions.”

Following the money

With forested areas the worst hit, the most likely target of the mafia is publicly funded reforestation projects, Linarello said.

Two major criminal investigations in Calabria have revealed infiltration of the woodlands and forestry industry by mob clans, with control extending to timber contracts and biomass energy plants.

The 'Ndrangheta is "very focussed on the green transition funds arriving from the EU and has likely bought into a myth that some of this money has been allocated for forests," Linarello said.

He added: “Woods, nature and biodiversity are the immense treasure of this region, unique in all of Europe, from which a future of development, tourism and prosperity can arise. Burning it is the most stupid and self-defeating act that can be conceived."

Another theory is that the mafia could be looking to make money by renting solar panels.

The anti-mafia commission in Sicily is investigating reports from some landowners that fires started after they refused offers to sell their plots to affiliates of the solar sector.

Claudio Fava, president of the commission, told the news website Live Sicilia: "There has been an intermittent search for land that could be purchased for €30,000 per hectare, while 200 applications for photovoltaic projects have already been submitted to the regional government."

In theory, because of the 2000 law, land cannot be used for solar panels after a fire, nor can it be used for reforestation with public money for years, except in exceptional circumstances.

That bar seems to have been met in the fires of Aspromonte. Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Thursday announced an extraordinary program of reforestation.

In recent years, the situation has been getting worse. Wildfires that were ascertained as criminal increased by 8 percent in 2020 to more than 4,200 in Italy, according to Legambiente, while fire-related crimes reported to police increased 25 percent to 552.

Goel called for locals to report those responsible. “We ask the real Calabrese, the honest ones, who live in the affected areas, who have seen the future of their children burned, to speak out! It is no longer a time of fear and silence … Do not be complicit in this ecocide."

But investigations into fires are very complicated, Fontana said, with the number of arrests a tiny fraction of the number of fires. Of the 4,200 crime-linked fires last season, 500 people were reported to police, and there were 18 arrests. "Whoever sets a fire thinks they can act with impunity," he said.

Nevertheless, farmers are beginning to speak out. A video of Emanuele Feltri, a farmer from Paternò, raging against the mafia after a young man died as he tried to help farmers put out fires has gone viral.

Legambiente has called for a full classification of fires, an inquiry into the use of resources, and for the law of 2000 to be enforced fully.

Goel proposes the motive of reforestation be removed by giving the job to the charity sector. A similar local initiative in 2003 in which 40,000 hectares of the Aspromonte national park were entrusted to associations and cooperatives with remuneration increased if burned areas did not exceed 1 percent was successful — and could provide a model for saving Italy's forests from future devastation.