THE MISGUIDED POLICY OF DRAINING ESTUARINE WETLANDS FOR AGRICULTURE - THE CASE OF GORO, PO-DELTA, ITALY

It is well known that estuaries, with their salt marshes and lagoons, have a high natural biological productivity. When one studies the case of Goro, a community on the Po Delta (6400 inhabitants), it becomes evident that this productivity can assume marked commercial connotations. Before 1955 Goro lived by catching and gathering the natural produce of about 5000 ha of brackish and freshwater wetlands. In that year, however, the government drained about half of the territory with the idea of improving the local economy. However, the resultant farmland which was presented to the inhabitants of Goro was sold to outsiders in the course of a few years and the original beneficiaries went back to their former activity. They found that harvesting the natural products from half of the original wetlands yielded more profit. In 1991, just the clams dredged from the lagoon were worth $US 64 million.