Federazione Pro Natura
FIFTY YEARS ON THE SIDE OF THE ENVIRONMENT
The origins of the National Federation of Pro Natura.
The dawn of environmentalism rose fifty years ago. In June 1948, in Italy, was founded the Italian Movement for Protection of Nature, while with the International Congress of Fontainebleau, in October, saw the light of the IUCN.
The groups pay attention to the planet’s natural components, operating until then, were directed more to the scientific study and cultural aspects to a real address to a political commitment to protecting the ecosystem.
On June 25, 1948 Renzo Videsott, his brother Paul, brothers Bruno and Nino Betta, Fausto Stefenelli, Benedetto Bonapace, Raffaello Prati, Fausto Penati, Alberto Deffeyes, Mario Stevenin, Giulio Brocherel and Alberto Durandi founded the first environmental organization in our country, the Italian Movement for the Protection of Nature, which then adopted the name of Pro Natura Italica and is now active as the National Federation of Pro Natura with more than 80 groups across the peninsula.
A Provisional Executive Committee, arranged to draw up a first statute whose introduction contains still relevant concepts: "The MIPN nurtures the certainty that, if its work will find the consensus and the support it deserves, even in Italy will form a consciousness of nature a practical, popular, active. It fact, contrary to the simple and narrow interpretation of its sentimental purposes, will exert a far-reaching practical for re launching the balance between man and nature, balance broken by a violation continues today and is particularly dangerous. The irrational exploitation of the soil, scars its chemical factors, deforestation, persecution of species useful to man, even the alteration of hydrological cycles etc. are burdening us and future generations a terrible bill. Suffice it to say that the only soil erosion, caused or aggravated by ignorance of the work of man on the planet loses 20,000 hectares of cultivated land per 24 hours. The world population is increasing instead of 35,000 creatures per day!
If it is now up to the technical organizations and government to implement the necessary measures to cope with the danger that future generations above, it is up to us to convince the public to create a new consciousness of nature. So we must take the battle to educate to a rebalancing and compliance with the conditions of life for man, not disregarding its economic needs, but harmonizing and coordinating future needs, not to let it build, selfishness utilitarian immediate, irreparable consequences .
At the same time we will get that through a deeper knowledge, a direct contact, a renewed love of nature, man draws a higher spirituality, new moral educational and aesthetic values. It expects this to end the contest of natural science, of philosophy and social, artistic movements, schools, tourism, sport hunting, alpinism".
No longer just a vision and natural environment, but the request for a policy that takes into account the value of the planet’s natural resources, avoid waste and the rapid consumption and against their being compromised by the pollution produced by human activity.
They were the same reasons that a few months later would lead to the foundation, in Fontainebleau, of the International Union for the Protection of Nature (name changed from 1956, in International Union for Conservation of Nature). On that occasion, to represent Italy at the international conference Renzo Videsott as an exponent of the Gran Paradiso National Park and the National Association for the Picturesque Landscapes and Monuments of Italy, while the MIPN was represented by his brother Paul and Ms. Antonia Pruner, and by the official Italian state Michele De Tomasso.
The Constitutive Act of the largest international organization of environmental protection bears the signatures of delegates from 18 governments, 7 international organizations and 107 national associations involved in the protection of nature.
It was on October 5, 1948 and MIPN was officially recognized as a founding member of UIPN. Renzo Videsott was called to serve on the Executive Committee.
The 1948 thus marked a moment of extraordinary importance for an environmental movement that has helped to make gradually asserted itself and reinforce an international awareness of human responsibility towards the planet.