Environmental organisations today expressed outrage over a plan by local authorities in the Abruzzo region of central Italy to combat prostitution with deforestation.

For decades, local law enforcement and politicians have struggled to police the Bonifica del Tronto road, a haven for the sex trade that runs inland for more than 10 miles from the Adriatic coast alongside the river Tronto. Over the years, cameras have been installed, raids mounted, 24-hour patrols implemented and the mayors of towns near the road have signed bylaws imposing fines on prostitutes' clients. All to no avail.

At the end of last month, the regional government's public works chief, Angelo Di Paolo, announced that the time had come for drastic measures. He said he had agreed with provincial and municipal representatives to cut down all the vegetation "around and along the banks [of the river Tronto]", in which the prostitutes ply their trade.

A local authority "ought to contribute to the solution of problems relating to law and order," said Di Paolo. But in a statement three environmental groups, including the WWF, said that the scheme would destroy 28 hectares (69 acres) of woodland vital to local ecosystems, saying the only crime of the thousands of trees on the local authorities' hit list had been to "offer with their fronds shelter and intimacy to sex slaves".

The authorities, they added, had "not even taken into account mitigating circumstances". "Among these are having absorbed thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide and given man precious oxygen," they said. They also prevented fertiliser and pesticides from reaching the river.

A census this month by an NGO found almost 600 prostitutes at work on the Bonifica del Tronto. Most were Nigerians, but they included Romanians, Brazilians, Albanians and Chinese.

Di Paolo is a man known for resolute responses. Some years ago, when he was mayor of the town of Canistro, he won national fame for shooting at a bank robber whom he then chased and caught.