It's hard to imagine a surface of 1,500 square kilometres — it's as large as the entire Greater London metropolitan area, twice the size of the whole state of Singapore, and equal to 210,000 football fields laid side by side. But this is the amount of natural or agricultural green land that is turned into construction every year. The data behind the Green to Grey investigation, whose third part we publish today, shows that the figures go beyond the estimates by the European Environment Agency: a wave of concrete erasing natural habitats and ecosystems.

Around Lake Garda, too, there is a tightening ring of concrete slowly choking its shores: a process of building along its banks— especially in the southern area—that risks suffocating it. The construction of numerous buildings near the lake means that increasing numbers of people are pressing on it, creating anthropogenic pressure that threatens ecosystem services and habitats.

Death of a lake

Lough Neagh is the largest lake in Ireland, with dimensions similar to Lake Garda (388 vs 368 square kilometres), and for some, it is already practically "dead". Over time, its waters have received excessive nutrient loads from agricultural runoff. Eutrophication is a phenomenon that profoundly alters the environment, causing the disappearance of many native species and severely impacting those who rely on fishing for their livelihood. Lough Neagh might offer a warning of what lies ahead for water bodies where concrete is taking over the shoreline.

On Spain’s southeastern coast lies the Mar Menor, a coastal lagoon that was polluted without control for over three decades and is now in critical condition. Journalists Ana Tudela and Antonio Delgado from the investigative collective Datadista, who are also partners in Green to Grey, documented its collapse in a 2019 investigation. Their work showed how the lack of regulation and oversight on intensive agriculture, combined with poor water management and the absence of political action, led to ecological collapse.

Being granted legal status as a subject of rights

Three years after Datadista’s investigation, something changed. While Mar Menor remains in poor condition, the strength of journalistic exposure combined with grassroots activism led to an unprecedented legal shift in Europe: the lagoon was granted legal personhood, as recorded in the Spanish government’s Boletín Oficial del Estado (equivalent to Italy’s Gazzetta Ufficiale) on September 30, 2022.

“The preamble to the law is particularly beautiful,” says Pasquale Viola, an environmental law expert. He travels globally, studying how non-European cultures regard the environment as a subject of rights. We meet him in Trieste, where he is just about to complete his work as a professor of Comparative European Environmental Law at the University of Trieste.

Sitting at a small table in a café just a few steps from Ponte Rosso, we enter the conversation focusing on some relevant examples from other countries. The preamble of the Spanish law that grants legal personhood to the Mar Menor, highlights Viola,  “states two things very clearly: the first is that there is a state of environmental and ecological crisis,” which it formally acknowledges. The second point is that the law “recognises the insufficiency or inadequacy of all the instruments used up to that moment to address the environmental crisis.”

That's where the concept of acquiring legal status as a subject of rights comes into play. A goal currently being pursued for Lake Garda, with Viola serving as an advisor.

The case of Lake Garda

The effort is led by the Federation for the Recognition of the Rights of Lake Garda, a grassroots group of citizens, associations, informal collectives, and committees. The initiative began a few years ago as a response to the construction of the controversial cycle path discussed in the first part of Green to Grey.

Isabella D’Isola, a former philosophy teacher in Milan, trainer, author, and long-time resident on the lake’s shores, tells us that the Federation began with a press conference to present a Charter of Lake rights, just to see what reaction it might provoke.

D’Isola and others in the Federation are well aware of the critical situation facing Lake Garda due to intense human pressure. From that awareness, a bottom-up movement emerged, one concerned about the lake's future and committed to public discussions and initiatives. That's how the Federation met Viola and began working on a plan to grant legal rights as a subject to Lake Garda.

Where the idea comes from

In our legal system, we distinguish between natural subjects and legal subjects, like corporations or associations. Granting legal recognition as a subject to a lake, however, means imagining that even non-human entities can hold rights.

Looking beyond Europe, this isn’t a radical notion. As Francesco Visentin, a geographer at the University of Udine and active member of the initiative, explains: “This possibility exists in many Indigenous cultures.” The example of Mar Menor is the first real attempt to bring such concepts into reality within a European context.

Viola recalls that Ecuador, where he worked for many years, incorporated Nature’s rights directly into its constitution. Another notable case is Colombia, which in 2016 granted legal rights to the Atrato River after decades of illegal mining and pollution. In 2017, New Zealand recognised the Whanganui River, sacred to the Māori people, as a legal subject, viewing it as a living ecosystem composed of all beings from source to mouth.

Atrato and Whanganui are part of a global shift, described in The Politics of Rights of Nature by Craig M. Kauffman and Pamela L. Martin. The book notes that between 2016 and 2020, courts granted legal rights to rivers and lakes in Bangladesh (all rivers), Colombia (numerous rivers and Lake Tota), and India (Ganges, Yamuna, and Lake Sukhna).

Now, says Visentin, the challenge is to cultivate this awareness in Europe too.

If the lake could speak

At our café table, we ask Viola: “If Lake Garda gains legal personhood, does that mean it can take someone to court? Or take to court those who fail to protect it?

"That's just one possibility, and not even the simplest one," Viola explains.

The key point is this: if the lake has legal personhood, it immediately gains standing in relation to public administrations and local authorities. In other words, its rights would have to be considered any time a decision is made involving the lake.

There is also the concrete possibility, says Viola, that the lake—through representatives from civil society or designated guardians—could initiate legal action. However, a formal legal procedure doesn’t yet exist. In Colombia, for instance, “guardians” were appointed to act on the Atrato River’s behalf.

Viola stresses that the problem is not bureaucratic: that part can be resolved. The real issue is political will. “We recognise legal rights as subjects to football clubs,” Viola remarks, “so I don’t see why we couldn’t do the same for a natural entity.”

Why it matters

Of course, there are other forms of environmental protection, such as nature parks and public commons. But as extensively discussed in the first two chapters of this investigation, these tools are often insufficient, poorly implemented, and fail to protect ecosystems in any meaningful way.

Still, legal personhood does not contradict these protections — it can coexist peacefully, Viola says.

But the perspective shift it brings is deeper: it prioritises the rights of the natural entity when others make decisions, and it affirms that non-human entities can also be rights-holders, on equal footing.

This is the path taken by Pasquale Viola, Isabella D’Isola, Francesco Visentin, and all members of the Federation, who are working to broaden the movement’s base of support. The first tangible step was the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Lake Garda, publicly presented in September 2024.

In September 2025, the Federation published a book titled This Wonderful Lake Garda. The Story of a Desirable Rescue, edited by Isabella D’Isola, recounts the progress so far and outlines what comes next. And now, the next essential step is finding broad political representation willing to bring a bill to Parliament.

Credits

Green to Grey is an investigative data journalism project initiated by Arena for Journalism in Europe and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, NRK. This is a cross-border collaboration between De Standaard (Belgium), Le Monde (France), Long Play (Finland), Die Zeit (Germany), Reporters United (Greece), FACTA (Italy), NRK (Norway), Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), Datadista (Spain), The Black Sea (Turkey), and The Guardian (UK). 

Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) provided scientific expertise for the project. 

The complete methodology is described by Léopold Salzenstein (Arena) and Zander Venter (NINA).

This investigation is supported by Journalismfund Europe and IJ4EU Investigative Journalism for Europe.

For all published stories, including those from other partners in the investigative consortium, go to: greentogrey.eu