Editorial

The sixtieth anniversary of LIPU’s foundation one spring day in Naples is an opportunity to revisit in part the path it has taken since, along with that of environmentalism in general, and to assess the importance of our work and the tasks that await us. For birds, for nature, and for all.

History, leavened with a certain amount of myth, tells us that Giorgio Punzo decided to found LIPU exactly 60 years ago, on a spring day in 1965, after reading in his newspaper the disturbing news that the Italian government had granted a derogation to hunters, allowing them once more to indulge in the terrible practice of Spring shooting. Arriving from Africa to breed after a journey filled already with natural hazards, migrating birds would be greeted with a fusillade. Hundreds of thousands of guns raised skywards. ‘It is a ridiculous decision’, the Professor must have thought. ‘Enough is enough.’

Contents

• LIPU – Sixty Years of success
• Farmland Bird Index – 25 Years
• Cranes in the Po Valley
• Annual appeal

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