The Environmental Issue in Sicily

Abstract

In Italy, despite the number of protected natural areas and the abundance of scientific research upon the landscape, the level of control of human pressure on the environmental system is still seriously inadequate. Among the main factors is the disconnection between urban/regional and sectorial planning, in the frame of the detachment of the nature conservation policies from the landscape and territorial policies, which is the focus of the present research. The regional situation is rendered even more serious by the lack of an up-to-date planning law (the Sicilian planning law was passed in 1978), the poor diffusion of territorial and vast area planning (the Regional Master Plan has never been endorsed and just one out of nine provincial capitals has endorsed the Territorial Provincial Plan) and the difficulty of integration of territorial policies and specialized planning tools, falling within the competence of different agencies (regional and provincial councillorship, Soprintendenze, Port authorities, free associations of municipalities, etc.). The difficulty of a complete and efficient application of the environmental assessment tools regarding projects, master plans and programmes (such as EIA, SEA). All of these questions today impose a reflection about the existing tools to address such territories. These tools have the limit to be disconnected among them.