Xylella emergency in Salento (Apulia): a geopolitical issue

Abstract

Salento has peculiar natural and human characteristics: mainly flat territory occupied by twenty million centuries-old olive trees which by law could not be uprooted; land fragmentation characterized by family economy and small business; aging demographic structures. These aspects represented an objective obstacle to the profitability of the land and a barrier to the free expansion of the market economy. In this context, the phenomenon of the Olive Quick Decline Syndrome (OQDS) appears in 2013. It is attributed to various causes and pathogens including Xylella fastidiosa (Xf), a quarantine bacterium. However, institutions focus only on Xf by adopting measures including felling of trees (infected and not), massive use of pesticides and a ban on planting Xf host plants. The proclaimed emergency - which has become permanent - still allows today, after ten years, to derogate from the constitutional principles and ordinary legislation for the protection of olive trees and the landscape, to "free" the soil and allocate it to new uses that would otherwise be precluded. It is evident that the "Xylella issue", far from being only agronomic and environmental, is a geopolitical issue.