A vertical cemetery of coal, a white expanse of ash. The snake that was made of asphalt, long since reduced to a twisted path of potholes and pitfalls, is what remains of a sad path of fire in the presence of the Gennargentu. The deep roots of those imposing centuries-old oaks still snort an acrid smell and white smoke, like the last gasp of a life defeated by a "blowtorch" that razed every hope of this land to the ground. Nothing was spared from the fury of those fiery, impetuous, high and violent waves that inexorably swept the proscenium "opposite" of the city that belonged to Cosima, the famous Grazia who so praised the horizons of the Athens of Sardinia in her novels.

Nothing remained

Now, here, inside Perdas Arbas, in the once lush proscenium of Sa Serra, in the peaks close to Prato Sardo, there is nothing left. The “fireproof” cork that was supposed to protect the mammoth pillars of the oldest oaks resisted as long as it could. It gave way during the night, when teams on the ground and in the air had to stop to let that crown of fire, visible like a horizontal volcano erupting from the top of Badu 'e Carros, consume its nefarious fury. Shepherds, volunteers, firefighters and foresters have, as if by miracle, saved flocks and herds, but those pastures are now scorched earth, hanging on the infinite resilience of nature. For the rest, not even a quadruped will be able to pass there for a walk, for ten years in all the areas affected by the flames everything and more is prohibited, starting from grazing and hunting.

Grazing prohibited

The framework law, 353 of 2000, leaves no margins: ten years of helpless ordeal for landowners and breeders. For them, fire is a perennial curse, a ten-year curse. A huge ordeal for those who are forced to pay taxes for that "charcoal" scattered in place of pasture. A key passage, that of the causes of these fires, in a nefarious environmental devastation that has always been looking for a reason. One fact seems to be established in this scenario which is increasingly hitting the Island of the Sun and the Wind: interests and businesses smolder above and below the ashes of every oasis inexorably covered by flames. Apparently invisible interests, imperceptible to most, marked by a process that does not end in a condominium showdown or between neighbors. The process appears broader, long-range, almost a strategy studied around the table, a real mission of "environmental degradation". The sequence is a map that has been stained black for years, from Montiferru to Barbagia, from the slopes of Monte Linas to those of Marganai, a boundless attack on the "creation" of Sardinia that knows no borders.

Sign & delays

A lush and unique landscape environment put at risk by criminal hands and unspeakable businesses, certainly favored by a fire prevention system that leaves unbridgeable gaps starting from the aerial management of the fight against flames which, year after year, appears increasingly degraded with mechanisms of contract and "specifications" that leave many shadows and too many pitfalls. Deploying, for example, three Canadairs to Olbia, none to the center and south of the island, means not having a homogeneous and articulated response across the regional territory.

Restarting the fire

The untimeliness of the intervention, then, is demonstrating, in the scenarios of these last few weeks, evident risks, such as the case of the "restart" of the outbreaks, from Villacidro-Villasor to Nuoro, from Isili to Osidda. Late actions, the failure to complete the reclamation due to the impossibility of flying at night, the obligation to restart the aircraft the next morning, with further dispersive deployments of the aircraft which leave significant areas of the regional territory undefended.

Time & money

A mechanism that consumes time and money, with those four tenders culpably ignored by the airlines who sent them deserted, with the sole objective of raising the "price" of fire prevention, a sort of "reverse cartel" with the aim of blowing up the fight in the flames after the criminal investigation by the Cagliari Prosecutor's Office into the "fire cartel".

Environmental degradation

To all this, however, is added the "strategy of environmental degradation", a crucial conspiracy that leads to the sale and depreciation of the territorial asset, to making any endogenous development project irreconcilable, linked to the environmental, agro-pastoral, naturalistic and tourist riches of the Sardinia. What should a farmer do who finds himself unable to use that land burned down for ten years, who finds himself with mortgages to pay and community obligations to comply with? The choice is almost obligatory: sell, or rather sell off. The combination of fires and energy speculation is, for now, a chapter yet to be written.

The Nuoro case

The fire in Nuoro is a case in itself. The “Sa Serra” fire, which devastated almost a thousand hectares of wooded areas, falls exactly in the area of two wind projects. The first: it is called “Intermontes”, thirteen shovels, each 180 meters high, from “Sa 'e Balia”, on the Nuoro-Benetutti provincial road, up to “Janna 'e sa Chida”. It is in the hands of the Spanish "Edp Renewables". The second is intercontinental: property of «Nuoro Wind srl», declared one hundred percent ownership of «YR Nuoro Pte Limitd», with headquarters in North Bridge Road in the central skyscraper of Singapore. A wind farm with 15 giant towers, 135 meters high for the pylon and 170 meters in diameter for the blades, overall over 220 meters high, a company headed by "Yinson Holdings Berhad", a Malaysian multinational, which deals with of large-scale investments, with a particular focus on offshore manufacturing, offshore wind turbines, and renewable energy, including the operation of offshore support vessels.

Einstein Telescope, the stop

Here, in these scorched lands, neither of them will have an easy life: the Barbagia capital is among those included in the protection area dedicated to Lula's Einstein Telescope where wind farms have been declared prohibited. The risk of the union between speculative interests and the apparent curse of fires is, however, written into a law that has remained dormant until now. In the national framework law on forest fires it is written: in the areas affected by flames "grazing and hunting are prohibited", but there is a shadow exemption that many are studying: "the construction of public works necessary to safeguard public safety and the environment".

No pasture, wind yes

A passage "on the environment" which opens up to a disturbing jurisprudence "of integrated and overall protection". The risk is that flocks and herds will be prohibited from grazing, while, in those lands burned by flames, for the "supreme" good of an elusive public environmental interest, the affairs of the lords of the wind and the sun can "graze". To add insult to injury.

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