Ploughing and beach levelling: environmental associations raise the alarm

22 April 2025

The transformations taking place along the shores of Lake Garda, with the widening of lakeside promenades, the development of beaches in view of the summer, and their increasingly tourism-oriented use, raise new concerns on the environmental front.
In the last few hours, the WWF Bergamo Brescia, Unione Pescatori Sportivi del Garda (UPSdG) and Legambiente per il Garda (Legambiente for the Garda) associations have launched an appeal to local administrations on the need for a more careful and sustainable management of the lake's beaches. They have signed a document, respectively signed by Paolo Zanollo, Maurizio Scarmigliati and Cristina Milani, addressed to the mayors of Garda municipalities, the president of the Garda Community Maria Stella Gelmini and the president of the Alto Garda Bresciano Mountain Community Chicco Risatti.
According to the associations, the tourist development of the beaches risks compromising the balance of a particularly delicate ecological area, where water and land meet, and which is a fundamental habitat for numerous fish species, some of which are in danger of extinction. The text calls for the environmental quality of the beaches to be considered not only as an aesthetic or recreational element, but as an essential component for the protection of the lake's biodiversity. The associations hope for a greater involvement of the competent authorities and a change of perspective in the management policies of the shores, so that tourist enjoyment can be reconciled with the conservation of the ecosystem.

‘Suspend or contain flattening activities’.
This is what is stated in the communication signed by Legambiente, WWF and UPSdG
‘Beaches play a fundamental role in the ecological cycles of Lake Garda, especially with regard to the reproductive periods of fish, this reality has been totally neglected by using the fragile area where water meets land only for tourist purposes: roads, lakeside promenades, beaches.
The disappearance of this awareness has undoubtedly resulted in serious damage to the fish populations in the lake both directly and indirectly.
Every activity that affects these areas, particularly during the fish spawning season, ends up having a direct or indirect impact on the overall size of the fish population, many species of which are now threatened with definitive disappearance.
It is for this reason that we are requesting that administrations suspend, and where this is not possible contain, the ‘ploughing and/or flattening’ of beaches that are carried out in preparation for the tourist season; it would be excellent in time to allocate some of these to the reproduction of the species most at risk.
Without a renewed approach to the issue of beach and seabed management, subjugated to tourism exploitation alone, we fear there will be no future for the lake ecosystem, which will be deprived of the ability to react to the constant stresses to which it has been subjected and which are expressed cumulatively.
Trusting in your sensitivity on this issue, we also urge you to urge the Basin Authority so that, with our help too, it may draw up a protocol aimed at defining the best ways to carry out activities aimed at preserving the ecological balance on which the lake depends and on which tourism also depends.


Read the full article on: https://gardatoday.it/notizie/aratura-e-spianatura-delle-spiagge-le-associazioni-ambientaliste-lanciano-lallarme