‘Too much cement on the coasts Fish do not reproduce’.

28 January 2025

Stop the cementing of coastlines and provide for the restoration of habitats for fish, otherwise Lake Garda will be enriched with infrastructure to attract tourists, but will lose even more of its natural beauty.

The appeal
‘Tomorrow, without the fish and birds that inhabit it, it risks becoming a beautiful swimming pool but no longer an ecosystem,’ is the warning of Maurizio Scarmigliati, president of the Unione pescatori sportivi del Garda (Upsdg), an association that brings together thirteen associations on the three shores for a total of about five hundred associates. ‘Lake Garda is going through one of its darkest moments,’ writes the Upsdg in an open letter, due to the drastic and progressive decline of some of its most representative fish species, such as whitefish (lavarello), bleak (aola) and agone (sardine), as well as chub and triotto. ‘New buildings, promenades, resorts and cycle paths are being built all over our lake,’ sport fishermen point out, with the consequence that valuable shallow gravel beds along the shores where many species of fish, such as those listed, go to breed, are being taken away.  There is no shortage of examples: there are the cycle paths already completed between Brenzone and Malcesine and the stretches of cycle path under construction at Baitone in Malcesine and at Torri del Benaco, while on the Lombard shore there are concerns about the work on the Desenzano lakefront and at Barbarano (Gardone Riviera), where ‘it is logical to think that the beautiful lakeside shoreline, the scene of centuries-old dredges of whitefish, chubs, mullets and other cyprinids including the aola, will give way to steps, piers and berths, and soon there will be a pressing demand for the extension or construction of new marinas, the creation of new buoy fields and the enlargement of existing ones to please an increasingly pressing tourism,' the Upsdg denounces.
The appeal is addressed to local politicians, environmental associations and professional fishermen. ‘We have repeatedly asked the municipal administrations to restore the gravel bed to recreate the shallows beyond the embankments built where the beaches used to be,’ Scarmigliati points out. ‘They promised they would do this, but they did not. We are now launching this message because this is becoming a huge thing: they are continuing to build without doing anything to recreate suitable habitats for the fish. If you want to do the works you have to design the environmental mitigation measures as well.’

The issue
The problem goes beyond cementing: ‘Last spring it happened that in some areas the beaches were levelled with bulldozers during the spawning season of the chub, destroying the frigate fish,’ Scarmigliati points out. The appeal then goes to the environmental associations: some of them, united in the Interregional Coordination for the protection of Lake Garda, are already engaged in the battle against the construction of the cantilevered sections of the cycle path in the middle and upper lake, but they are asked ‘especially those represented at a national level to act as a megaphone on the need to redevelop the areas where the works are being done anyway,’ adds the Upsdg president. Lastly, an appeal to professional fishermen, about a hundred of them on the entire Garda Lake: ‘They are like farmers who must take care of their field by keeping it productive, instead they often limit themselves to asking for new fish releases and not respect for the territory. They must join our appeal, their work also depends on it,' Scarmigliati concludes, ’we are trying to involve them with the direction of the Garda Community, it is important to be united.



Read the article in the Arena of 29/01