There were 30,686 crimes against the environment in Italy in 2022, an increase of 0.3% with respect to the previous year, Legambiente said Tuesday in its Ecomafia 2023 report.
The environmental association said this worked out at 84 environment crimes a day, or 3.5 an hour.
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It said the biggest category of environmental crime regarded illegal building work, with 12,216 felonies last year, 39.8% of the total and a rise of 28.7% on 2021.
Next came crimes against fauna, of which there were 6,481, while illegal-waste-related crimes dropped 33.8% to 5,606.
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The report said revenue generated from environmental crime in Italy was stable at 8.8 billion euros a year.
It added that 67,030 administrative offences were committed against the environment last year, an increase of 13.1% on 2021.
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