When does the redevelopment of an area undermine its sustainability?

07 November 2023

Words like 'Overtourism' and 'Turism Explosure' are now part of the vocabulary used to describe the tourist season, especially here on Lake Garda.


The influx of tourists, concentrated just a few months a year, hampers both the quality of the services offered and the sustainability of the area. This is why the associations and facilities on Lake Garda talk about deseasonalising the tourist offer.


 But how does more tourists mean less sustainability? 


When, for example, infrastructures and local communities fail to guarantee an efficient and quality service, when there is a lack of alternatives for sustainable mobility and those present are unable to support a high concentration of visitors, and when an area, which should actually be protected and safeguarded, considering the vast biodiversity of native species of flora and fauna present in these natural areas, is made suitable for building. This is what seems to have happened in Costermano del Garda, according to REPORT, the RAI 3 investigative journalism programme, with its report 'Guarda che Garda' aired on 22 October. The construction of a 300-metre-long Tibetan bridge that would 'cut' the Valle dei Mulini in half, with a car park of over 400 spaces, tourist accommodation facilities designed to accommodate the large number of travellers, a senior citizens' centre and a new mega-villa next to the monumental German cemetery.Let us leave any further investigation to Report, and instead pause to reflect on how such a project could damage the sustainability of its territory. Through the deterioration of a natural capital that should be protected and preserved? Forests that become buildable? Sites of Community Interest (SCIs) that become the scene of 'authorised' constructions? Certainly the economic profit would be significant, but all this would have a huge ecological and environmental impact. We have a duty to preserve and protect the natural areas of Lake Garda and their ecosystems, habitats of rare species of plants and animals, also for the generations to come and, why not, to be able to guarantee to the tourists of the future that crystal-clear water, that intact and authentic environment. Not an area that is only made up of car parks, water parks and tourist resorts, the same everywhere in the world.