Italy Citizen Declaration: rights of the Venice Lagoon

Summary

In December 2023, under the acronym IDRA (Iniziativa per i Diritti delle Reti d’Acqua), Pietro Consolandi (researcher at TBA21 Ocean Space) and Amalia Rossi (scientist at Ca’ Forscari NICHE University) initiated a participatory process in which civil society members including architects, lawyers, researchers, artists, activists, conservation groups, and lagoon residents – driven by concern for the state of the lagoon ecosystem – explored future governance models for the Venice Lagoon.

On November 20 2025, the nearly two-year process culminated in a Declaration of the Rights of the Venice Lagoon.

Legal Framing
The declaration, which is intended to develop into a legislative initiative in the coming years (including a referendum), recognizes the lagoon as a legal entity with one voice within a complex urban, ecological, and politically fragmented structure.

Inspired by the ecologically comparable Mar Menor in Spain, the idea arose to protect Venice’s urban nature by elevating the lagoon itself to a legal protagonist with rights. These right comprise eight demands, including: the right to biodiversity and social diversity, the right to ecological and socio-cultural integrity, and the right to repair, reparation, and regeneration.

Background and Ecological Context
Discussions among the participants identified several issues that underpin the human-nature relationship in Venice: protection from the sea, refuge from hostile peoples, economic prosperity, and infrastructural challenges. To achieve these goals, the lagoon has been transformed countless times: rivers have been diverted, sediment flows controlled, and waterways artificially kept open. The lagoon has never been a static natural space, but rather the result of deliberate interventions.

This transformation accelerated dramatically in the 20th century. Since 1900, sea levels have risen by more than 30 centimeters. Studies document a massive loss of coastal habitats. Seagrass, important breeding grounds and vital biological water filters for the entire lagoon, has declined sharply since the 1960s. The characteristic salt marshes have largely eroded. Furthermore, the delicate interplay of sediments, currents, and fresh and saltwater mixtures is being altered by shipping, canal dredging, and large-scale technical infrastructure projects such as the MO.S.E. flood control system.

This human-non-human co-production is manifest in the foundations of the built city: mussels, algae, and microorganisms attack the foundations of the stilt houses, but simultaneously stabilize them, bind sediments, and thus influence the chemical balance of the lagoon.

In addition to the city’s nature, the cultural heritage and social fabric are also facing major challenges. In the last 70 years, the population of Venice’s historic city center shrank from around 175,000 to less than 50,000 inhabitants – while the number of tourists increased dramatically from 1.2 to 9.4 million.