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Monday 6 June 2016

WHATEVER NEXT...?

On Saturday, by pure chance, I saw a post on Facebook, where photos had been published of a "new entry" along one of the most panoramic and popular trails in Massa Lubrense, from Nerano to the Bay of Jeranto: an antenna on a pole and something resembling a fridge balanced on the rocks looking out to sea. To start with I really wasn't sure of the authenticity of the photos, thinking it might be someone's idea of a sick joke, but regretfully it wasn't.
I immediately asked Giovanni Visetti, if he knew anything about it. He too had just seen the news and the following morning went to take a look.
Here are the main points of his subsequent blog:
- this  project was approved and decided by none other than the Ministry of Environment, Land  and Sea.
- this is just one of a series of  eleven sites chosen to monitor and protect the waters of the Natural Marine Reserve Punta Campanella.
Now apart from any considerations of whether this is actually a valid project  and worth the money it has no doubt cost  (one does wonder who is actually going to control the data and who will be taking any action against potential offenders?), would it have been too much to ask for  this equipment to be set up in some other point, or at the very least, less obtrusively and more respectful of the surroundings?
Why put it  on a popular and busy hiking trail?
Why dump the cabinet right at the centre of a viewpoint and not against a rock face or concealed (even partially) in the vegetation?
Why encumber an open and extremely panoramic space with cables and a solar panel (as well as the cabinet)?
And finally why on earth did the "gentlemen" who carried out this work, (commissioned, let us not forget, by the Ministry for the Environment), leave  pieces of electric wires, plastic ties and duct tape on the ground around the site, rather than clearing up behind them? 
I shared the photos on my Facebook page "SorrentoAmalfiWalkWithUs" with the comment "Look what has appeared along the path to Jeranto" and within hours the comments came flocking in. By the end of Sunday there had been over 3000 hits and dozens of shares (now up to over 4,500!), so it is not as if people are indifferent. 
Fortunately the local administration (who were blissfully unaware of the situation until the same photos appeared on their Facebook page)  has assured us that measures will be taken to remove it and locate it elsewhere. Hopefully this will be sooner rather than later bearing in mind that it took years to get rid of the ugly and rusting pylons that were ruining the views along this very path. 

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