There are many doubts circulating in these hours about the fate of the Green Bonus, the fiscal incentive introduced in 2018 to favor the arrangement of gardens and green areas for private individuals and apartment buildings. The measure does not appear in the fiscal decree, from which the procedure of the next financial will begin. The request for an immediate renewal has been immediate from the world of arboriculture.
Arboriculturists Association and SIA (Italian Arboriculture Society), which bring together hundreds of professionals, companies, researchers, trainers and public officials from all over Italy, have issued a joint communiqué to «express all their disappointment with respect to a choice that risks being heavy effects on the quality of private green areas ".
"We share the concerns that come from the sector about the failure to include the bonus in the tax decree," says Andrea Pellegatta, vice president of SIA. «Only a few days ago they had learned with enthusiasm of the presence, in the Clima Decree, of funds for urban forestation, a sign of an ever-increasing attention of politics and institutions towards the green and, therefore, of the entire floriculture sector, which always more is considered strategic for combating climate change. However, it should be remembered that the funding of the Climate Decree will only fall on metropolitan cities, which are only 14 in the whole country ».
The impact of the Green Bonus is different, stress the associations, a measure that allows widespread interventions.
"For this reason it should not only be renewed, but also made more organic, for example by including among the deductible interventions all those that improve the conditions and health of existing trees," adds Pellegatta.
"The Green Bonus - continues Andrea Trentini, president of the Arboriculturists' Association - has had the importance of underlining the connection between the presence of greenery and its benefits and the need for professionalism in all the activities that concern its care. That of professionalism for the care of trees is a theme that, as associations, is very close to our heart and we have been fighting for for years. It is paradoxical, in fact, that harmful and improvised interventions are still allowed in the public sphere as well as in the private sector due to an ever increasing attention to trees and greenery in general for environmental and health benefits. The green bonus is a measure that recognizes the importance of professionalism for the care of trees and greenery, and this is why we find it necessary ».
«Eliminating the green bonus - Pellegatta concludes - would be a serious mistake, also due to the contrast to illegal work which for the sector is a real sore and which also affects the health of the trees as well as the companies that work professionally respecting the read »concludes Pellegatta.
"Trees, especially - Trentini resumes - are often damaged by incorrect pruning, the so-called pollarding, which eliminates the ecosystem benefits provided to cities, such as particulate filtration, temperature reduction and CO2 fixation . In the Green Bonus, with the extension to all existing tree care interventions, we see concrete help in combating improvisation and harmful practices, such as topping, and to encourage good care practices. Healthy trees thanks to greater professionalism, greater benefits for the environment and the health of citizens ".