How the Mafia is weaponizing wildfires

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🗞️ Driving the news: Southern Italy faces rising wildfires, often fueled by Mafia involvement for financial gain and control, alongside natural factors like extreme heat and dry winds
• Organized crime exploits fires for profit, including emergency contracts and land deals tied to clean-energy projects
• Sicily, Puglia, Calabria, and Campania remain hotspots due to their historical Mafia influence

🔭 The context: Over half of Italy's wildfires in 2023 occurred in Mafia-dominated regions, with criminal groups leveraging fires to intimidate, profit, and exploit post-disaster funds
• Investigations reveal that fire is a tool of terror and a gateway to lucrative contracts for firefighting, cleanup, and renewable energy infrastructure
• Italy’s anti-arson laws struggle with enforcement, leaving burned areas vulnerable to speculation

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Fires destroy ecosystems, release carbon, and perpetuate cycles of environmental degradation
• The Mafia’s role in weaponizing climate change intensifies this damage while undermining efforts to combat the climate crisis, as they exploit resources meant for recovery and clean energy

⏭️ What's next: Experts call for improved strategies to prevent fires, reforest burned areas, and enforce land use restrictions
• Stronger tracking, monitoring, and community resilience are needed to counteract both environmental damage and Mafia infiltration
• Without intervention, escalating climate conditions may make this criminal exploitation more frequent and damaging

💬 One quote: “The Mafia appears to be both weaponizing climate change, which is whipping up more destructive fires, as well as trying to exploit funding intended to address it.” – Lauren Pearson, UC Berkeley researcher

📈 One stat: Over 3,700 fires occurred in Italy in 2023, with more than half in Mafia-controlled regions like Sicily, Calabria, Puglia, and Campania

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