CEA is an acronym in Italian for (Centro di Educazione Ambientale, Environmental Education Centre). Every year CEA welcomes tourists from all over the world to our town. Paolo Manicone, a volunteer in charge of introducing our environs kindly took our questions, making and defending his points.
Few know that introducing new floral species into a protected area is another form of pollution. Shall we get so fussy when our local Gravina park is troubled with so many other problems?
Paolo answers: “It is extremely important to preserve the landscape and keep it as it is without any human intervention.”
Nevertheless, in the last few days we all have witnessed the river Jesce floods bursting its banks and covering the whole lands around with all kinds of rubbish.
In such circumstances, is it possible to reclaim the area? Paolo suggests an answer: “It’s possible to manage more correctly the waste disposal system here - serious problems are mostly the lack of funding and bad behavior, though“. Unfortunately, his reply was not enough for us to dispel our doubts. 
For example, the pruning of the trees in town should not have caused any problems, but it did! Paolo smiles and answers: “The town council should have a better organized office for all environmental matters and then people are becoming much more metropolitan every day”. Does CEA have any responsibility for this? “Absolutely, not. My fellow colleagues and me only care about making people more aware and concerned about the environment, that’s all!”.
So I would say that it’s not CEA’s fault if citizens are becoming less concerned about environmental issues, but we should know that responsibilities must always be shared within the community.
Written by Paola Montemurro ( I D )
Translation by Gianfranco Colla ( II D )
Liceo Classico "Duni" - Matera (Italy)
Questions to Paolo Manicone, CEA volunteer in Matera