Environmental risks and ecological integrity: the new european rules on nature restoration

In May 1998, the area of the Sarno district in Campania was hit by an exceptional rainfall event, which caused rivers of mud, 161 deaths and numerous injuries.

The tragedy was caused by various factors: the morphology of this territory, rainfall, reduced vegetation cover and the lack of an efficient network of stormwater drainage channels. The vegetation cover of the ground is essential on these slopes, because trees play a decisive role in the stability of the slopes. In those areas, in previous years, large fires had reduced the forest area and therefore stability. Furthermore, the lack of a valid warning system and risk communication contributed to the collective tragedy.

The event marked a regulatory turning point in Italy, leading to the approval of the so-called "Sarno Decree," which introduced the requirement for municipalities to map areas at hydrogeological risk.

The response of the law, in an attempt to stem these catastrophic events, was immediate. However, in relation to vegetation protection, in 2024 must be cited the approval of the Nature Restoration Law, an expression of the new path taken by European environmental law. Its prerequisites appear to be based on urgency, immediacy, and the need to pursue environmental objectives within a certain timeframe and monitor them over time, thus ensuring the survival of living beings in an intact environment.

Indeed, it seems that in recent regulatory interventions we are moving from the concept of sustainable development, which has not proven ambitious enough to achieve environmental objectives, to the concept of ecological integrity.

It is precisely from respect for ecological integrity that the duty to safeguard and restore nature arises, in pursuit of the objectives of ecosystem resilience and integrity. They include climate regulation, carbon dioxide “capture” and coal storage, defense against natural disasters and hydrogeological instability, ensuring biodiversity.

So it is the same nature, precisely thanks to ecosystem services and the resilience they allow, that offers the possibility of reacting in the face of environmental risks.

From this perspective, a process of juridifying ecosystem sustainability was initiated, leading to the approval of the Nature Restoration Law, based on the One Health approach and a new relationship between law and science, which collects data, discusses, and shares knowledge and research findings. In order to pursue the restoration objectives set out in the Regulation, Member States may use traditional command and control tools, i.e. the programming tool, or rely on market instruments.

Finally, European rules on nature restoration today aim to overcome the punitive logic that traditionally accompanied environmental law and which was activated once damage had occurred (ex post reaction), opting instead for a preventive (ex ante) approach of designing interventions for environmental improvement and the care of common goods.