Garda, the hypocrisy behind the mirage of development

05 December 2025

The adjective ‘false’ refers to someone who does or says the opposite of what they think, with the aim of deceiving someone. Therefore, the rhetorical expressions of appreciation for the environment, nature and future generations that every newly elected president or mayor of institutional offices on Lake Garda has proclaimed at their inauguration are truly false.
They are false not only because they reveal a lack of courage to express one's own ideas, but above all because of their instrumental intent, used in ‘public speeches’ to accredit their authors in the public eye as heroic defenders of the environment.
Indeed, on closer inspection, these heroes are doubly false, because they are part of a political world that sees no other use for “natural resources” than to allow their commercial exploitation.
It is these two practices, falsehood and blind faith in the market, that have transformed political parties into lobbying machines and generated “dead souls” (those who do not vote at election time) tired of being taken for a ride.
Since money has been flowing into the entire Garda area in recent years for property speculation and speculative “luxury” tourism, the old slogans have come back with a vengeance.
The romantic and distorted narrative of the benefits of the market is always ready to seduce with promises of "employment, revenue for municipal coffers, contracts for local suppliers, deseasonalisation, prestige for the destination. All that's missing is free Vaseline and well-being is guaranteed for all.
So, green light to investors who bring development and growth to our territory. A vision that goes hand in hand with public intervention. Doesn't the cycle path costing hundreds of millions go in this direction?
Development and growth of trade and tourism. Same film, same set, same drama about the benefits to be bestowed not on the majority of the population who have lost hope and trust in institutions, but on the northern curves of politics, on the fans, the tough ones, who have replaced ideas with the flag to be defended at all costs, or rather, their own interests. A pitiful and ridiculous scenario that amuses and makes only the real holders of power laugh, today as yesterday: the investors.
The continuity of these practices, which have been going on for more than half a century, are a kind of time bomb that will lead Garda to an ignoble end.
In the 1980s, I sent photographs taken on the beaches of Portese showing hundreds of dead eels to provincial newspapers: today, fishing for eels is prohibited.
During the spawning season, bleak and chub used to populate the shores of Lake Garda: today, this is no longer the case. The carpione (a salmonid that lives only in Lake Garda) has been described over the centuries as the king of fish: it too is almost extinct. With public funding for its protection beginning in the 1990s, it has only been “played with”, as the positive impact of current practices (removal of breeding fish from the wild and restocking) has never been scientifically proven.
There is a clear general crisis threatening the well-being of the entire fish system in the lake, compounded by water purification, a brick lifted, for now, from our heads by the weight of a few billion from this political class, which sooner or later will end up falling on our feet.
The native Gardesani are not doing well either. Yesterday, social housing plans were being drawn up to meet their needs. Today, only the needs of large investors are being met.
The result: they are being driven away from the place where they were born. Remember the emphasis placed just yesterday on using dialect on signage to preserve the authenticity of traditions? Funny, isn't it?
In the theatre of tourism and the wealth created by its businesses, one need only look “behind” the curtain to discover another bitter truth: we are heading for failure in this field too.
The lack of crop rotation or the excessive exploitation of the land has ruined entire populations in the past, condemning them to extinction. It is a metaphor, but one that can help us better understand the real conditions of the future of hotels, bars and restaurants built between the 1960s and 1980s.
These establishments have already “borne fruit”, squeezed to the full of their vitality, and structural ageing and the “new climate” in which they have to operate are, in most cases, dissuading the heirs, the offspring of “noble families”, from continuing their work.
The “miracle” they called tourism is coming down to earth and renting the facilities to those who are not afraid of the more unfavourable working conditions that require greater sacrifice, regardless of their passport. Another shortcut to the “miracle” can be seen at the municipal planning office and is called a “request for change of use”.
Is this the new world, the promised paradise, forms of environmental and social destruction?
The “new” direction imposed on us with the construction of new luxury tourist resorts only serves to speed up the timer on this ticking time bomb that threatens to put an end to the whole show.
Fiorenzo Andreoli


Read the article at: 

https://www.gardapost.it/2025/11/29/garda-lipocrisia-dietro-il-miraggio-dello-sviluppo/