Friday, May 25, 2012

Save Villa Adriana


"We appeal to Prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro, the Extraordinary Commissioner for Refuse of the Regione Lazio, to reverse the decision to install a landfill for refuse at Corcolle-Villa Adriana-San Vittorino. This is an area of immense cultural and natural value not only for Italy but for all of humanity.To speak only of the most obvious site that requires our watchful and eternal protection, we note that Hadrian's Villa is only a short distance from the proposed landfill. This unique UNESCO World Heritage Site is visited each year by hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world. It is unconscionable that it or its immediate surroundings should suffer degradation of the kind that the proposed landfill clearly represents.

Local authorities have already made known their willingness to find an alternative solution. The Province of Rome has announced its firm opposition. The Ministry of Cultural Property and Activities has also properly expressed its concern.
We, the undersigned archaeologists, scholars, scientists, and members of the general public from all over the world now join with an increasingly large number of Italian citizens to raise our voices in protest of the project to create a landfill at Corcolle-Villa Adriana-San Vittorino. We hope that it is not too late for reason and a decent respect for the past to prevail.

We also appeal to Corrado Clini, Italian Minister of the Environment, to announce immediately that the proposed project for a landfill at Corcolle has been once and for all abandoned; and that Hadrian's Villa will be respected and protected."

Save Villa Adriana. Sign the petition.
Thank you.