With around 1,200 rivers, 1,500 lakes and a sea surface area of over 7,000 kilometres, Italy could rightly call itself a country with a special relationship with water. But this relationship is not always idyllic.
Aquifers polluted by chemicals and waste, illegal withdrawals from large reservoirs, induced eutrophication processes, entire countries left without drinking water. Of course, careless management of water resources is not just an Italian problem.
It is no coincidence that the Blue Communities movement, launched by Maude Barlow, who received the Right Livelihood Award in 2005 for her work as UN Special Rapporteur on the recognition of water as a human right, has been active internationally for several years.
The concept behind Blue Communities is simple: we must take care of water, stop its uncontrolled extraction and abuse, stop its pollution, and guarantee the right of access to clean water for all. The only way to address and solve the global water crisis is to keep water in the public domain by protecting it from speculative interests.
Maude Barlow’s proposal has been taken up by cities such as Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Munich, Montreal, Vancouver and Los Angeles, which have declared themselves Blue Communities. And Italy? As is so often the case, our country is lagging behind, but thanks to the “Blue Communities” project co-funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, the first water communities could soon be established. The project, which started in January 2023 and will end in April 2025, involved hundreds of young people aged between 14 and 30 in Piedmont, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Lazio and Sicily to promote mobilisation in support of the creation of water communities.
During the closing event, the project coordinator, Marco Iob (CeVI), illustrated some concrete results, such as the commitment of the Municipality of Udine to make drinking water accessible during public events by installing distributors connected to the aqueduct, and the initiative of a high school that decided to follow the path to become a Blue Community. This path includes the training of all the school’s teachers on the subject of water, based on the course carried out as part of the project.
Antonella Litta of Isde (International Doctors for the Environment), on the other hand, highlighted the serious situation of Lake Vico, a protected area that has been affected by intensive industrial farming of hazelnuts. Despite the many alarms raised over the years, the indiscriminate use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilisers has led to the proliferation of toxic algae, making the area’s water undrinkable. Litta pointed out that this situation is the result of political choices that have favoured economic profit at the expense of health and the environment. A leitmotif that Blue Communities aims to counteract.
