Conservation Efforts at Canale della Rocca Boost Fish Habitat in Alta Garda
Securing management of the northern side of the Canale della Rocca, charging a small annual fee to all members who moor their rowboats there, and using these revenues to finance an overall cleanup of the area (currently degraded by excessive proliferation of wild birds) are part of the proposed intervention. Most importantly, it aims to give a boost to a well-structured project dedicated to the preservation of fish fauna in Alta Garda.
It is precisely because the cause is just that the minority councilor Piergiorgio Zambotti has decided to lend a hand (through a question in the Comune) to Amici della Tirlindana, a rivanese association of about 150 members that has been trying to secure a concession for the small port area located beneath the Rocca’s towers for the past couple of years.
Responses and Current Bureaucratic Difficulties
To be honest, Amici della Tirlindana have never received negative responses, but since the canal (like all Rivano ports) is in a delicate bureaucratic phase — transferring jurisdiction from the Province to the Comune — the shifting of responsibilities has so far prevented fishermen from obtaining clear answers regarding the fate of the Canal.
“We can assure,” wrote Gianni Scoz, secretary and founder of Amici della Tirlindana, in February 1999, “a transparent financial management and the use of any available funds from moorings (our intention is to set an annual fee of 150-200 thousand lire) for restocking Lake Garda Trentino and protecting the lake trout.”
Fish Fauna Conservation Project
Since then, however, the fish fauna protection project has become even more detailed and is contained in a dossier that Scoz has already shared with public authorities.
The proposal includes, among other things, automatic water monitoring stations on Albola and Varone (the least “controlled” tributaries of the lake); restoration of reed beds on the Rivano shoreline (the only remaining one is in Torbole, in a state of abandonment), which are crucial for the survival of fry; drastic reduction of birds responsible for spawning fish eggs; and stricter regulations on fishing.
“Lake Garda Trentino,” says Scoz, “has enormous recreational and tourist potential from a sport fishing perspective, which definitely justifies greater political and financial commitment and an immediate recovery program. Rectifying decades of neglect is not easy, and our suggestion is to entrust the coordination of interventions to an Authority.
As Amici della Tirlindana, we are willing, in our small way, to commit ourselves with volunteer work and ideas.” But, as mentioned earlier, the Association would first need the financial oxygen of the port for boats.