Renewables in Val di Cornia: The Consortium rejects landscape destruction.

The Suvereto and Val di Cornia Wine Consortium expresses strong concern about plans for the production and management of electricity from renewable sources that would be implemented in the area.

Such a complex and widespread system, according to the conservation body, has profound implications for the landscape, the agricultural use of the sites, and the preservation of the territorial identity.

While reiterating its full support for the energy transition to renewable sources, the Consortium calls for more decisive regional intervention aimed at managing the energy transition while respecting its local community.

“ The recent project to install a 100 MW BESS in Suvereto risks being only the first in a series of scratches to an area that over the last forty years has imagined a future other than an industrial one, made up of protecting and enhancing its scenic beauty and quality agricultural production ” comments Daniele Petricci, president of the Consortium .

Winemakers are concerned not only about the production sites, which would relinquish dozens of fertile hectares of agricultural land to make way for agrivoltaic panels and wind turbines, but also about the infrastructure that would be built throughout the Val di Cornia. Storage systems, conduits, easements, substations, and connection structures would create a mosaic that, cumulatively, would transform the landscape and the local economy.

This process risks leading to expropriation proceedings and would affect the entire area without distinction, significantly compromising agricultural productivity and thus the economic stability of many family-run businesses, the economic units that underpin the local socioeconomic fabric and guarantee employment continuity for the dozens of employees they employ.

" We don't just sell wine, but a region and its image. And so do the hundreds of tour operators in the Val di Cornia. What's being feared is a devastating, irreparable disaster for the landscape, which would jeopardize the very economic sector on which our region relies, " adds Petricci, referring to the visual impact such installations would have.

Indeed, it is impossible to speak of identity-based, quality agriculture or respond to the desire for beauty inherent in tourism by referring to an area marked by high-altitude wind farms and vast areas covered with solar panels.

This development model is diametrically opposed to that promoted by the Consortium, which sees the valorization of agricultural assets and their context as the path to widespread well-being, rather than the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few landowners and large industrial operators outside the local fabric.

Hence the call to the Tuscany Region to assume a clear and recognizable leadership role, defining a regulatory framework capable of guiding the energy transition without unleashing its effects, in a haphazard manner, on agricultural lands and local communities. The Consortium believes it is essential that the Region reclaim the right to identify truly suitable areas, evaluate not individual projects but their cumulative impact, ensure transparent and participatory procedures, and prioritize the protection of the landscape, agricultural vocation, quality products, and the local tourism economy .

" Ours is not a 'no' to sustainability, a goal our companies have been pursuing for years. What we are asking for is for the Region to lead a process based on sharing and balance, which also takes into account the specificities and needs of individual regions. All this to prevent the transition from turning into speculation, " concludes Petricci.