Italy's 'barefoot climber' Tom Perry has been barred from scooting down famed Sicilian volcano Stromboli, scotching his latest venture in shoeless daring.
Italy's Natural Disaster Risk Assessment Department (UPVRN) said Perry would be a danger to himself and probably to others in the descent, which had been set up at a base camp on the island of the same name.
''Apart from risking his own neck, Perry could endanger the lives of any rescue teams that might be called in,'' said UPVRN chief Bernardo De Bernardinis.
The 48-year-old athlete from Vicenza, who was born Antonio Peretti, also risks producing copy cats, De Bernardinis said.
''There is a concrete risk of emulation,'' he said.
Perry's pointman for the feat, Etna guide Carmelo Nicoloso, voiced ''great regret'' over the decision.
He pointed out that the local mayor had given the all-clear, taking the precaution of asking Stromboli mountain rescue teams to lay out the safest course.
Nicoloso said Perry's event could have ''added to Stromboli's lustre'' as a United Nations heritage site.
In his descent of the Aeolian island's 924-metre peak, Perry was to have walked where no man has set foot before, the 'Sciara del Fuoco' side of the volcano where lava flows during eruptions.
In places the slope offers 50-degree inclines.
Perry's exploit was also to have been filmed from a helicopter which would have airlifted him off the mountain if he got into trouble.
The last major eruption of Stromboli was in December 2002, when a mini-tsunami wrecked Aeolian coastlines, but it has rumbled on several occasions since, stopping sea links to the island.
The boot-free Perry has already conquered Kilimanjaro in Africa, Fuji in Japan, the Himalayan heights of Makalu and volcanoes in Ecuador, Mexico and Bolivia - as well as Etna on the Sicilian mainland while it was erupting.
On each of his climbs Perry has raised money for environmental causes and peace groups worldwide and he is a frequent subject of television documentaries.
An amateur parachutist, hiker and biker, Perry says on his website that he ''discovered his true calling'' when he flung off his boots and started running headlong down a local mountain one summer's day in 2002.
On his website, www.tomperry.it, Peretti says he feels ''the Earth transfers its energy to me while I'm barefoot''.
''I am spiritually reborn, I become a conduit for positive and genuine values''.
