Editorial

Saints and Sinners.

My cover picture and that to the left, illustrates the unremitting struggle against the poachers in Sardinia. The work is led these days by Gigliola Magliocco and we can see her in the cover picture flanked by volunteer students and a Forest Guard.

The camp which is largely funded by LIPU-UK ran for an extra week in February this year and was working closely with WWF and the Cagliari branch of LAV as well as the Corpo Forestale del Stato. Every day 10 to 12 people were patrolling the hillsides around Capoterra collecting traps and effectively countering all the efforts of the poachers who set traps and snares for birds and animals of any sort.

More on this can be seen, albeit in Italian, at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znhOVhqCfA0&feature=youtu.be

LIPU is collaborating with the Spanish and Greek BirdLife Partners and more of the progress of the anti-poaching works can be seen again, at the moment in Italian only, at: http://www.leavingisliving.org/life/index.php/en/campaign-3/project-updates

I hope you will feel the same satisfaction as I do that we are very much involved in this work and happy to see such progress.

Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for the LIPU Reserve of Castel di Guido, near Rome. One can see the wetlands of this coastal reserve from the window of your airliner as you approach Rome’s Fiumicino airport, but you can no longer see the visitor centre because vandals have burned it to the ground. It will be rebuilt, but this is a real blow to those who have loved and cared for this special part of Italy, led by warden Alessia De Lorenzis.

Acts of senseless destruction like this are all too common on nature reserves which, in most countries, are usually out of view and easy to enter unseen. This does not excuse the vandals and we have sent our sympathy to Alessia.

Contents

• Anti-poaching patrols
• Project support for 2014
• Protection, Science, Education
• Alpine Nature

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