Book launch on the Rights of Nature in Venice

In conjunction with the initiative Nature Speaks. Listening to the Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe, Amalia Rossi and Francesco Danesi della Sala present a publication edited by wetlands, in synergy with NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Italian Buddhist Union (UBI), the volume brings together contributions from legal scholars, urban planners, ecologists, artists, and researchers in the Environmental Humanities involved in the Initiative for the Rights of Water Networks (IDRA) and in drafting the Declaration of the Rights of the Venice Lagoon.

From the Dolomites to the Lagoon, the water bodies of northeastern Italy are at the center of a silent crisis: groundwater aquifers contaminated by “forever chemicals,” engineered rivers, and disappearing wetlands. A crisis that environmental law—fragmented and anthropocentric—still struggles to address in its full systemic complexity.

What does it mean, then, to think of nature as a subject rather than a mere resource, recognizing that a river or a lagoon has the right to exist, regenerate, and take part in the decisions that concern it?

This has already happened in Ecuador, New Zealand, Colombia, and Spain, and is now beginning in Italy, in the Venice Lagoon. The volume collects contributions from researchers, legal scholars, activists, and artists who, starting with the civic campaign of the Initiative for the Rights of Water Networks (IDRA), are working toward the goal of granting the Lagoon and its drainage basin legal personality and rights of their own.

Moving between comparative law, political ecology, environmental history, and artistic practices, the book presents the philosophical perspective and international precedents of the global movement for the rights of nature, documenting the path that led to the Declaration of the Rights of the Venice Lagoon. It thus traces the course toward a profound metamorphosis in the relationship between human communities and ecosystems—one expressed in a legal framework that integrates environmental protection, social justice, and democratic participation, providing a concrete tool for those who seek to turn this vision into reality.