National Councillor Fabio Regazzi from the Problem Organisation Jagd Schweiz

If it doesn't work in the Locarno region, there probably won't be any new national park at all.

Editorial Team Wild beim Wild — 2 June 2018

On 10 June, Ticino will vote on a national park in the district of Locarno (Ascona, Brissago, Bosco Gurin, Centovalli, Losone, Onsernone, Ronco s/Ascona, Terre di Pedemonte).

Although all affected municipalities officially support the project, the tone between opponents and supporters within the population has been aggressive.

At the end of November 2016, voters in the cantons of Graubünden and Ticino rejected a national park around the Rheinwaldhorn — the Adula Park — at the ballot box. Back then too, the short-sighted hobby hunters were largely opposed and stirred up negative sentiment accordingly, using fear and lies.

The failure of this ambitious project, which had been in preparation for many years, soon gave rise to the new project, which is supported by the Ticino government, eight municipalities, and twelve civic communities across whose territory the national park is to extend.

Unlike the existing national park in the Engadine, a genuine nature reserve, the Locarno region project concerns a new-generation national park consisting of a core zone and a surrounding zone.

The park spans several climatic zones, stretching from the Brissago Islands at 193 metres to the 2,864-metre-high Wandfluhhorn above Bosco Gurin. The sparsely populated valleys of Onsernone and Centovalli, which are constantly under threat of depopulation, form the true heart of the park.

«It is good for nature and the environment, but also for the villages and valleys, as it gives them a future.», says Elvio Della Giacoma, mayor of Brissago. The territory would be enhanced in value, and the exodus from the valleys could be halted. The national park project of the Locarnese region, in whose “creation” many different groups are actively involved, aims to enhance nature and the landscape, to promote and support the grazing sector, as well as to create synergies with the wealthier municipalities of Lake Maggiore. The purpose of a future national park therefore also includes new jobs for the residents of our peripheral regions, both for the younger valley population and for all those who once moved away and now wish to return. But recently, Della Giacoma had to call supporters and opponents to order at a community meeting about the park. «The tone is currently aggressive and hostile», he said.

Hobby hunter Fabio Regazzi

Hobby hunter and National Councillor Fabio Regazzi (CVP) is an opponent of the nature park. He represents the majority of hobby hunters who oppose the proposed hunting ban in the core zones and fear that the hunting ban could in future be extended towards the Maggiore Valley.

And this, despite the fact that hunting with game wardens is permitted in the national park in cases of significant damage, such as when wild boar populations become excessive.

This once again reveals the double standards of these self-appointed and self-serving “nature conservationists” from the hobby hunter milieu, who block everything that is innovative, progressive, civilised, and for the common good.

Instead of creating a second national park for Switzerland, the association Jagd Schweiz prefers to secure a hunting territory.

Board member – Fabio Regazzi – at «Jagd Schweiz» has repeatedly acted in a self-serving manner in the past as well. Recently, he even wanted to barbed hooks make barbed hooks socially acceptable in fishing again. However, his effort to promote animal cruelty ended in failure. Animal cruelty is not a tradition.

Evidently, these hobby hunters are neither well educated nor do they possess sound moral integrity.

Particularly when it comes to hunting and hobby hunters, it is essential that the public scrutinises matters very carefully. Nowhere is so much manipulation carried out through falsehoods and fake news. Violence and lies are two sides of the same coin. For decades, hobby hunting has been nothing other than a permanently costly construction site, a patchwork, and a source of conflict for politics, forestry and agriculture, public administrations, the judiciary, health insurers, insurance companies, animal welfare, environmental and nature conservation organizations, the police, the federal government, the media, and so on.

Any other organization with so much criminal energy would have long since come under the scrutiny of the federal prosecutor's office!

Current criminal offenses committed by hobby hunters in Switzerland are listed here: Link

The Committee for the Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy of the Council of States also rejects the motion by Fabio Regazzi .

The use of barbed hooks violates, among other things, Art. 4 Para. 2 of the Swiss Animal Welfare Act (TSchG), according to which no one may inflict unjustified, unnecessary pain, suffering, harm, or fear on an animal — a cornerstone of Swiss animal welfare law.

In early December 2017, Ticino television broadcast the fictional feature film «Guardiacaccia» (Game Warden) over five evenings in the living rooms of Italian-speaking Switzerland. National Councillor Fabio Regazzi subsequently blubbered publicly for days like an acne-ridden schoolgirl and threatened the Swiss broadcaster (RSI) with legal action because, in his opinion, the Ticino hobby hunters had not been portrayed in the best light.

Park Charter for ten years

On June 10, a vote will be held on the Park Charter, a kind of business plan for the first ten years. For the core zone, which covers 28 percent of the total area of 218 square kilometers, there are legal restrictions so that nature can develop freely there. Even now, these zones are practically unused and have returned to the wild.

The core zone may only be entered on designated paths, although dogs on a leash are permitted. The supply of mountain huts by helicopter and rescue operations by the air rescue service remain possible.

The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the Canton of Ticino support the project. «The project is less complicated than the Parc Adula — and all municipalities are behind it», says cantonal environment minister Claudio Zali.

The member of the right-wing Lega is therefore optimistic. But he cautions: if it doesn't work out in the Locarnese, there will probably be no new national park at all.

Italy has 24 national parks, Germany has 16. Switzerland, by contrast, has only one — the Swiss National Park in Engadin, established in 1914.