ITALY:While northern Europe combats rain and floods, Mediterranean Europe is battling with forest fires and the Mafia.
At least that would seem to be the case in Italy which in a recent week, July 31st to August 6th, registered no fewer than 9,757 fires.
In a long, hot summer, this might sound like business as usual but the problem is that the majority of these fires have been started deliberately.
Environment group Legambiente estimates that 60 per cent of fires in Italy are started deliberately, some by arsonists, some by farmers "cleaning" land, some by accident and, last but not least, many by organised crime.
Curiously, where the presence of organised crime traditionally makes itself most felt, in Sicily, Calabria and Campania, there too forest fires cause most damage.
Speaking about a series of fires in the Campania region this week, local politician Corrado Gabriele pointed a finger at this long-established "summer practice".
"We're dealing with an offensive by organised crime here. There is a whole business around these fires, a business worth millions. The camorra [ Naples-based Mafia] wants to create new zones for building so that they do even more building speculation."
Even though law 353 of 2000 stipulates that terrain subject to a forest fire cannot be rezoned for 15 years, many local authorities, especially in the mezzogiorno (south), have been less than diligent about enforcing this legislation, making Mafia speculation all the easier.
Even in those areas where the law has been enforced, with the zones being replanted with trees, organised crime still stands to gain since various Mafia-controlled groups have invested heavily in the tree-planting business.
Many Italians were horrified last month by television images of a vast fire close to the Puglia seaside resort of Peschici. Holidaymakers were trapped on the beach for hours as firefighters tried to overcome a blaze that claimed three lives and destroyed many buildings.
Images of tourists forced to camp in temporary accommodation inevitably had a negative effect on the Puglia tourist trade.
The Peschici deaths have been followed by one in Lappano, near Cosenza, Campania, this week, prompting the WWF to ask for a "reward" of €100,000 to be put on the head of arsonists. Infrastructure minister, the former anti-corruption campaigning magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, this week likened the situation to the "far west", calling for the army to be deployed to tighten security in remote rural zones.
Environment minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio has called on local authorities to actively pursue alleged arsonists through the courts by registering as civil plaintiffs: "These fires are a national emergency that continues to register victims. This is a real criminal assault on the country's parks and other areas by people linked to organised crime and illegal building."