Pollution effect in the regional Lama Balice Park – Bari

Pollution effect in the regional Lama Balice Park - Bari - a research by the2A students (a.s. 2023-24) coordinated by prof. Zina Vitarella

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STORIES FROM AN EXTRAORDINARY PLACE – POLLUTION EFFECT IN THE REGIONAL LAMA BALICE PARK – BARI

The city of Bari is crossed by 9 lame: erosive furrows generated by temporary streams from nearby towns.

One of these blades, with its richness of biodiversity, has become a regional park the access of which is close to our school. People are not aware of such an amazing place and often abuse of it and create environmental disasters in its territory.

WASTE POLLUTION

Lama Balice Park has turned into an open-air landfill. There are rubbish bags, empty cartons, buckets of paint and other plastic material, together with construction waste.

Pollution can directly kill organisms or insidiously destroy or slowly poison them, disrupting the physiological modes of life. For example, animals or plants need odours which the male and female need to find each other to reproduce. Pollution interferes with that mechanisms. Plastic pollution causes harm to animals in several ways: entrapment, ingestion, suffocation and release of toxic chemicals.

FLOODINGS

A lama is a very critical place in terms of water floodings. The park needs continuous maintenance to prevent the river bed from being blocked. But the park lacks of controlled cutting of vegetation, cleaning of the bottom and cleaning of the banks. Thus every time it rains too much the water overflows and devastate the park and the surrounding areas. Only the last year the authorities that manage the Park have found the money to finance a project which concerns a stretch of the Lama 3.2km long. The aim is to restorate the hydraulic functionality of the river and to defense architectures existing along the riverbed.

 

POLLUTION DUE TO PESTICIDES

Pollution due to pesticides used in agriculture and other chemical products causes the decline of insectivorous birds’ fauna. It also affects amphibians such as frogs, toads and salamanders, insects and small mammals such as bats and hamsters.

The Park suffers continuous attacks on biodiversity: bins containing solvents and paints, plasterboards and Eternit sheets. Continuous fires of waste occur and release polluting and highly toxic agents.

There are also sewage stagnating in the river bed which had already flooded numerous lands in the park area. The reclamation of the land affected by the spill is necessary.

 

WILD BOARS

The waste pollution also causes the increasing of wild boars’ population of the Park. European wild boars are typical inhabitants of mature woods of oak forests, while the African and Asian subspecies appear to prefer open, swampy areas. It is very adaptable in terms of habitat and colonizes any kind of environments, including the urban one where it can easily find food in waste containers.

Lama Balice is affected by the presence of a large number of boars introduced by hunters and which feed on waste they find in the park. Their numbers are now out of control and it is a big deal.

In woodland environments where the species is native, the wild boar carries out a beneficial action, as its continuous excavation work in the surface layer of the soil contributes to its aeration, to the decrease of harmful insect larvae and the burial of seeds favoring development of the forest cover.

The concentration of a large number of animals on the contrary damages the tree cover, causes the decline and disappearance of many species of reptiles, amphibians and ground-dwelling birds, as it actively feeds on both animals and their eggs.

Extraordinary measures are now necessary to restore the environmental balance in the Park but, above all, we need to educate citizens on its protection otherwise the pollution will arise again.

FLOODINGS

WASTE POLLUTION

WILD BOARS

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