Nicknamed the “Robinson Crusoe of Italy,” hermit Mauro Morandi, guardian of a paradisiacal and uninhabited Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, is leaving what has been his home for the past 32 years.
The announcement was made last Sunday (25), on its Facebook page. He said he got tired of fighting to stay on Budelli Island, where he has lived since 1989.
The island is between Sardinia and Corsica and is known for its unmistakable “pink beach“, whose color is due to the presence in the sand of a microorganism called Miniacina miniacea.
“I have been fighting for 20 years against those who want to expel me, even though I have the support of all of you, but now I am really fed up and I will leave, hoping that, in the future, Budelli will be protected in the same way as I have been for 32 years old”, wrote Morandi on Facebook.
The hermit would have to leave the house where he lives because the administration of the La Maddalena Archipelago National Park, where Budelli is located, wants to renovate the place.
“I hope that, after the works, they will let me come back here, but I don’t know if they will,” Morandi told the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino. According to the hermit, he will sign the rental contract for an apartment in the city of La Maddalena, which is in the same archipelago, next weekend.
“Obviously, I found a house facing the sea,” he said.
Robinson Crusoe
Character created by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Robinson Crusoe stars in a novel of the same name that tells the life of a shipwrecked man on a remote tropical island.
Morandi arrived in Budelli by chance, after renting a catamaran with friends and his then-girlfriend to travel to Polynesia. Right at the beginning of the trip, the group decided to stop at the La Maddalena archipelago to explore the good moment in tourism in the region.
Upon discovering that Budelli's guardian was about to leave, Morandi decided to abandon the trip and take on the role informally, living in an old military radio station from the Second World War.
He had already received a notice to leave the island in 2017, after the acquisition of Budelli by the State, but he always relied on popular mobilizations through petitions to prevent the eviction.
The administration of the La Maddalena Archipelago National Park intends to demolish all abusive constructions on the island and build an environmental observatory. (Handle)
