Friars join Berlusconi to attack Italy's Forest Police shake-up

The friars at the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis of Assisi, who pursue lives of "poverty, chastity and obedience" in the medieval hilltop town in central Italy, may have little to share with Silvio Berlusconi, the country's former prime minister and media mogul known for hosting lavish sex parties while in office.

But the Franciscans and Mr Berlusconi have found a common cause: protecting Italy's Forest Police, which has been around for nearly 200 years and now risks being shaken up by a public sector reform plan being pushed by Matteo Renzi, the country's prime minister.

This week, Italian lawmakers began debating the long-awaited overhaul to Italy's costly and often inefficient public sector, with a first vote expected in the Senate this month.

Among the provisions in the framework law is a line saying Italy's Forest Police - which manages 130 nature reserves, investigates environmental crimes such as poaching and tracks down agricultural fraudsters - should be reorganised and possibly folded into other bodies.

One of Mr Renzi's objectives since taking office has been to streamline Italy's five police forces: the State Police, the Carabinieri military police, the Guardia di Finanza tax and border police, as well as the Prison Police and the Forest Police, which is the smallest of them all, with 8,000 agents.

However a backlash ensued, in a sign of how quickly public sector groups in Italy feeling threatened with cuts, or even mere changes to their structure, are able to mobilise against the government.

"It's right for the government to look at economic matters, but we would like there to be more attention to defending the environment around us," Father Enzo Fortunato of the Sacred Convent told the Financial Times, adding that curbing the Forest Police would hand more power to organised crime in agriculture. "The danger is that man becomes an arrogant destroyer of nature instead of its careful custodian," he adds.

Even Mr Berlusconi, who has backed Mr Renzi in some reforms and has never been seen as much of an environmentalist or a champion of Italy's public sector, jumped on the bandwagon. The Forest Police "should not be sacrificed on the altar of reforms at all costs", Mr Berlusconi said, adding that it would be a "grave error" to lose such "competence with respect to our environment, our agriculture, and our land".

Mr Renzi's government believes the worries of the Forest Police and their supporters are misplaced. "We don't want to lower the level of environmental protection by an inch. We just want to simplify the chain of command and make all these functions happen under a different police corps," said Bernardo Polverari, chief of staff to Marianna Madia, the minister of public administration. "We are not trying to minimise the Forest Police, to reduce headcount, or cut back their activities," he added.

Overall, the reform of public administration is expected to save the Italian government about €400m starting next year, but there are no specific savings from the planned changes to the Forest Police.

Still, at the Roman headquarters of the Forest Police - in Italian the Corpo Forestale dello Stato - officers see themselves as "scapegoats" and lament the uncertainty surrounding their fate. They insist Italy's state police has a completely different mission, to maintain public order, rather than safeguard the environment, which could lead to big cultural clashes.

"To work under these conditions is not easy," Amedeo de Franceschi, head of the unit of the Forest Police that investigates agricultural and food-related fraud. "What will come of us?" he says. Mr de Franceschi is adamant that their work is critical to Italy, citing recent investigation they conducted into cheap olive oil produced by "deodorising" or bleaching the olives that undercut more expensive extra-virgin producers in Italy and led to new EU labelling requirements.

Mr de Franceschi also cited probes into genetically modified Monsanto corn crops seized in Friuli Venezia-Giulia, and scrutiny of mozzarella producers claiming to offer customers fresh Italian cheese but are in fact importing rennet from abroad. "There's a need for transparency and legality," says Mr De Franceschi. "Our concern is this work could be lost," he added.

Nevertheless, they are hopeful they will win the fight. "There is a huge movement of opinion against this. It was supposed to be a cake walk for Renzi," says one officer at the Roman headquarters.

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