There is one figure that weighs more than all: 462 people died from hunting weapons between 2007 and 2025. Yet, while the world faces increasingly evident environmental crises, Italy is accelerating a reform that goes in the opposite direction.
The Senate is ready to resume DDL 1552, known as the Malan-Lollobrigida bill, which intervenes on law 157/92 and profoundly redefines the rules on hunting. According to 58 animal rights, environmental and scientific associations, this is a critical step, which risks further weakening the protection of wildlife and increasing the risks for people too.
The text and the amendments presented outline a worrying scenario: fewer protected areas, more huntable species, reduced scientific controls. And again, the possibility of extending hunting activity in contexts previously excluded, up to the beaches, and opening up to foreign hunters without clear limits.
And not only that, among the changes there is also a strengthening of the link between hunting activity and agricultural interests: the management of private hunting areas could be recognized as an entrepreneurial activity, with access to public funding. A step which, according to the associations, risks transforming fauna – which by law is everyone’s heritage – into an economic resource.
Then there is an institutional issue: an amendment aims to avoid the judgment of the Constitutional Court on an already contested body, the National Technical Faunistic Hunting Committee. A technical passage, but far from neutral.
Meanwhile, outside Parliament, the opposing front is growing. Over 400 thousand signatures were collected against the measure, while more than 50 thousand support a popular initiative bill to abolish hunting. According to Ipsos polls, 85% of Italians say they are against hunting.
This reform comes at a time when the protection of biodiversity has also entered the Constitution. Article 9, updated in 2022, effectively commits the Republic to protecting the environment, ecosystems and animals, also in the interests of future generations. This is why the associations are asking for direct intervention from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni: to stop the bill before it becomes reality. Because of hunting, certainly, but also and above all because of the environment and safety.
