Target: Francesco Lollobrigida, Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry of Italy
Goal: Strengthen proactive animal welfare enforcement so that authorities can intervene before animals reach the threshold of suffering required to trigger legal action.
Italian authorities seized a dog in Livorno following alleged mistreatment after the case reached the legal threshold for intervention — but as animal welfare observers have noted, this case illustrates a fundamental problem with Italy’s approach to animal protection. Enforcement is almost entirely reactive, triggered only once conditions have already deteriorated to a level of documented suffering. By the time authorities intervene, animals have already endured the harm that the law theoretically exists to prevent. Italy’s approach contrasts sharply with modern animal welfare frameworks in other European nations, which place a positive duty of care on owners and authorize preventive intervention.
Italy’s animal welfare legal framework, while providing penalties for cruelty, does not adequately empower inspectors to intervene on the basis of risk before suffering is documented. The result is that countless animals in Italy — like the dog in Livorno — allegedly suffer for extended periods before the legal threshold for intervention is finally met. The European Union’s Farm to Fork strategy and its evolving animal welfare standards call for exactly the kind of proactive, prevention-oriented framework that Italy currently lacks.
The Minister of Agriculture has both the authority and the responsibility to advocate for legislative reform that places a positive duty of care on animal owners, authorizes preventive intervention by welfare inspectors, and establishes proactive monitoring systems that do not wait for suffering to become legally documentable before acting. Sign this petition to demand Italy move from a reactive to a proactive model of animal welfare protection.
PETITION LETTER:
Minister Lollobrigida,
We are writing to urge your ministry to use the mounting evidence of Italy’s reactive animal welfare enforcement failures — including the recent Livorno case in which a dog was seized only after mistreatment had already reached the legal threshold for intervention — as the catalyst for meaningful legislative and regulatory reform. Italy’s current animal protection framework is fundamentally reactive: it authorizes action only after harm has been documented, rather than empowering inspectors to intervene preventively when risk factors are identified. By the time the law is triggered, animals have already suffered.
Modern animal welfare frameworks in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and several other European nations place a positive duty of care on animal owners and authorize intervention on the basis of welfare risk, not just documented suffering. Italy’s alignment with the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy and evolving European animal welfare standards should include adoption of a similarly proactive approach — one that prevents harm rather than simply responding to it after the fact.
We respectfully but firmly demand that your ministry introduce legislation establishing a positive duty of care for animal owners in Italy, authorize welfare inspectors to intervene on the basis of documented risk rather than documented suffering, and invest in the monitoring and enforcement capacity necessary to implement proactive welfare oversight. Animals in Italy deserve a legal framework that protects them before they suffer — not after.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: Pava, Milano
