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Written by Vincenzo Desroches, Greeniac4457575   
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Friday, 13 August 2010

Sicily

Sicily Not Willing To Jeopardize Its Biggest Asset… Each year thousands of people from around the world vacation on the majestic coastline of Sicily. Known for its breathtakingly clear waters, rich marine life and incredible foods and wines, Sicily is considered one of the top tourist destinations in the entire world. And Sicily is fully aware of it. The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill has frightened many small countries around the world, Sicily included, as they wonder how their economies would survive if their waters became heavily polluted through an inadvertent oil spill.

Currently, large international companies are moving in on Sicilian waters in order to explore for oil in the island’s waters. This has caused great alarm within Sicily, and government officials are doing all they can to prevent any oil drilling in or close to Sicilian waters, as country officials fear the effects of a spill. The Sicilian economy does not even compare to the U.S. economy in size or scope, and although the BP oil spill has not caused a complete shock to the U.S. economy, small countries such as Sicily fear that a large spill would be enough to send a major systemic shock throughout the economy.

“We are not against development, but this kind of activity jeopardizes the biggest asset we have—the environment,” Roberto Di Mauro, Sicily’s environment director told the Financial Times recently. “We don’t want history to repeat itself.” Mr. DiMauro is one of many government officials in Sicily that is trumpeting the call for greater proactive environmental protection of Sicilian waters. Not only should the waters be protected for the sake of the natural environment, but Sicilian officials argue that they must viewed as one of Sicily’s greatest assets, and therefore protected accordingly.1

One of the major concerns that officials currently have is regarding the companies that have been granted licenses to drill in Sicilian waters. A number of these companies are small and would not have immediate access to capital in case of an oil spill. The ability to respond immediately to an oil spill is essential, and the fear is that many of these companies are not armed with the material or financial resources to deal with a large spill.

Thus, small countries such as Sicily have two major concerns regarding off-shore drilling in close waters—environmental and economic. In reality, the two concerns are extremely interconnected and similar. For example, Sicily wants to protect the Mediterranean waters off its coastal shorelines because of environmental duty, but at the same time, as Mr. DiMauro was quoted as saying, the environment is the biggest asset that Sicily and many of these smaller countries have. An asset is defined in finance as something that pays you. For example, if you pay off your house and own it debt-free, it is an asset. Under normal market conditions it increases in value each year, and you become richer by doing nothing. The house, as an asset, pays you.

The environment in Sicily is an asset. Each year it “pays” the Sicilian economy billions of dollars through farming, fishing, tourism, trade waters, etc. If this asset is jeopardized, the economy could falter significantly, and the Italian economy is not necessarily recognized as a dynamic economy that is able to weather storms. In fact, Italy is most often mentioned alongside Greece, Portugal, and Spain, as a EuroZone country that is in danger of sovereign default. A major blow to the economy in the form of polluted waters off the coast of Sicily would be devastating to the Italian economy. If one is interested in learning more about currency movement between the EuroZone and other countries, an online forex course could help tremendously.

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1 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/77ab5168-a3ee-11df-9e3a-00144feabdc0.html




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