We’re entering the age of environmental consciousness.
We’ve seen it from this story, too, in which take part a showgirl of 10 million followers and a rock 5 million years old.
To continue our tour of Sicily on foot, we walk from Agrigento towards Gela along the coast and cross Punta Bianca, an area likely to become one of Sicily’s next natural reserves.
In this peninsula sculpted by wind and water, a rich Mediterranean scrub populates the hills and rocks seem carved by expert craftsmen. At the very point, white “Trubi” marlstone crops out, calcareous rock known for forming iconic cliffs at Scala dei Turchi, a tourist site near Agrigento.
60 years ago it was only an uninhabited area suited for military exercises. In 2001, it gained the status of “site of significant public interest”; however, to make it a nature reserve it was first necessary to find an alternative site for the army field trainings.
A stalemate that lasted 20 years until being resolved two months ago.
Thanks to who?
Not an activist, nor a politician, but a showgirl: Belen Rodriguez.
At the end of a photo shooting that had Punta Bianca marlstone in the background, she wrote an Instagram post in which she prompted Sicily’s president to start the process of making this place a reserve. This happened effectively one day later, November the 6th. By mid-December a proposal was approved to define the reserve perimeter.
The fact that many people, and of different background, are standing up to protect a stretch of coast, act that only very few people would have done half a century ago, feels like it’s a good omen for what’s next.
Too soon to count our chickens, though, since some people still feel comfortable to smear these cliffs with red powder, as it happened recently at Scala dei Turchi.
Or may this even be the opportunity to prove that one day was enough to find a bunch of volunteers to clean it up?
All in all environmental consciousness has grown, promoted by civic education and outdoor activities like hiking.
Many more people, as a result, believe that important natural sites should be protected in the same way as baroque churches or family heirlooms.