Forest fires that swept through Italy this summer have destroyed approximately 70,000 hectares of land.
According to Operative Information Center-OMM, citing international media reports, this devastated area is equivalent to the size of nearly 100,000 football pitches.
Reports indicate that approximately one-third of these fires occurred within protected natural areas. Over the past two decades, the total area destroyed by forest fires in Italy has surged by 133 percent, highlighting a growing environmental crisis.
The situation remains even more severe in other parts of Europe. Spain has reported 219,000 hectares of land lost to wildfires, while France has seen 91,000 hectares destroyed. These figures underscore the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires across the continent, often exacerbated by prolonged heatwaves and drought conditions associated with climate change.
Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, a senior forest policy officer for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the European Union, criticized the current political discourse. She noted that while Europe is engulfed in flames and firefighters are struggling to contain the blazes, some political leaders are debating the weakening of climate and nature protection laws.
According to Schulmeister-Oldenhove, the priority should not be the deregulation of environmental standards, but rather their strengthening to prevent similar catastrophes in the future.
