How Rome's rubbish problem is attracting wild boar into the Italian capital
Rome is one of Europe’s greenest capitals, boasting huge expanses of unspoilt countryside within its urban confines, including the Acquedotti park and the Monte Mario nature reserve.
But what many consider to be a blessing is worsening a long-running environmental crisis.
With nature so close, wild boar have roamed into the centre, attracted by the overflowing garbage on the streets of the Italian capital.
The hogs have been spotted in the historic heart and outside the headquarters of RAI – Italy’s main television network.
Agricultural association Coldiretti estimates there are in the region of 23,000 wild boar around the city.
Since boar incursions are wide-ly perceived as harbingers of urban decay, citizens have pilloried the new administration ushered in last October -- headed by centreleft mayor Roberto Gualtieri -- for allegedly failing to fulfil his promise to solve Rome’s age-old garbage troubles, after he had unveiled an ambitious € 40 million plan to clean the city by Christmas last year.
Now citizens are taking things into their own hands, protesting at what they consider to be unacceptable living conditions.
Rome's rubbish problem
But frequent boar incursions into the city's streets testify to more than its geographical context alone: rather, they alert to a serious and chronic garbage problem.
For years, local institutions have struggled to tackle the waste disposal crisis, especially after Rome’s notorious landfill, Malagrotta, was closed in 2013 for failing to meet European environmental standards.
A lack of effective alternatives -with tonnes of Roman rubbish even having to be exported to neighbouring countries, like Austria -- has resulted in frequent delays in garbage collection.
Consequently, the rotting smell emanating from overflowing bins has attracted the hungry hogs, which come in the search for food.
“It’s been demonstrably proven now that there’s a relationship between this boar epidemic and the waste disposal crisis,” Leonardo Maria Ruggeri Masini, an environmental activist, told Euronews.
“The fact that you have uncol-lected rubbish in the streets and parks of the city’s northern neighbourhoods might have been the cause of this epidemic.”
While the animals’ presence in urban areas has been especially associated with former city mayor – Virginia Raggi from the populist
Five Star Movement, whose administration was habitually criticised over alleged waste disposal mismanagement – it’s clear that the problem is far from being fixed.
African swine flu detected
Earlier this month, African swine flu was detected among the wild pigs. While the epidemic poses no threat to humans, it can affect other animals.
This has seen regional authori-ties create a large “red zone” in the northern half of the city, where picnics have been banned.
Plans are also in place to cull the boar population.
The situation has gotten so out-of-hand in the so-called “red zone” neighbourhoods that citizens have even been sticking to self-imposed nightly curfews. At the start of the month, a woman and her dog were hounded down by a group of eight boars. The hogs chased after her dog and pinned her to the ground, leaving her lightly injured.
For activists like Ruggeri Masini, the wild boar epidemic hits close to home. The young campaigner himself resides within the “red zone,” and has dedicated much of his attention to looking after the nearby Monte Mario park, where many of the hogs dwell and have been sighted.
He also recently founded a group, Liberamente, which has the goal of fighting urban decay and promoting eco-friendly initiatives in Rome’s northern districts.
“If serious plans had been put in place to contain the boars, the situation wouldn’t be as bad,” he concluded. “To eliminate the risk of boars, we need to remove these garbage heaps now.”
'We can’t keep living like this'
While the high-risk “red zones” are largely in Rome’s northern suburbs, boars have even made it to parts of the city’s centre.
Prati, an affluent residential quarter flanking the Vatican, is one such neighbourhood.