The ruling was issued by ISPRA, the Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research: Sardinia is among the Italian regions with the highest percentage of land consumed by photovoltaic systems. These panels are literally taking away space and vitality from rural areas. Paradoxically, ISPRA is a public body controlled by MASE, the Ministry of the Environment, which issues the permits that led to the disaster, as documented in writing.
The document
A 557-page report, the recently published 2026 edition, reveals the fate the island is facing due to energy speculation disguised as a transition. The first reference table, number 19, is on page 64: in 2025, Sardinia consumed 445 hectares of land, "natural, agricultural, or semi-natural," understood as "an essential and fundamentally non-renewable resource, vital for our environment, our well-being, and our very economy." All the regional ARPAs, the territorial agencies that, together with the Institute, form the National System for Environmental Protection (SNPA), collaborated in its drafting.
The detail
Of those 445 hectares, 136 were lost because they were occupied by solar panels, according to the Report. This is equivalent to 190 soccer fields. The increase in land use compared to 2024 was 0.54%, above the national average of 0.48%. Furthermore, on the 136 hectares, the island also exceeds the Italian average, given that that portion of environmental resources dedicated to photovoltaics is equivalent to 30.6% of the total land use a year ago. That's a third.
