There is only one connection between Largo Goethe and Piazza Castello: the drawbridge built at the end of the 13th century by the Della Scala family of Verona, who also built the fortress. We are in Sirmione, on the Lombardia shore of the lake Garda, and when tourist flows reach their peak, as in high season, even crossing the bridge becomes a nerve-racking challenge. Images of the same bridge, overwhelmed by crowds more typical of a stadium concert, went viral online and on television. That slight stretch of road has increasingly become one of the symbols of overtourism around Lake Garda – so much so that even local authorities have begun to talk about the need for countermeasures.

However, it's not just about the inconveniences faced by locals when tourists arrive in large numbers. The increase in visitor numbers inevitably translates into an expansion of land use to provide accommodation and services for those who stay at Garda. As we show in Green to Grey, a long-term investigation in several chapters that we worked on for months with 41 colleagues from 11 countries to measure the extent of nature lost to concrete and roads across many European regions between 2018 and 2023, satellite views of Garda’s shores clearly reveal how the grey of construction has increasingly taken space from green nature.

A nature under pressure from massive human presence. Only rare stretches of wild coastline remain, and there is less and less space for the animal species that live around and in the lake. Before being a social or economic problem, overtourism is above all an urgent ecological issue. Despite its enormous natural and scenic value, Lake Garda has very few protected areas and therefore lacks, even on paper, the mechanisms that should ensure careful conservation. At least for now.

Analysing the data collected by Zander Venter, researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) – the research center that started this major collective investigation – and cross-referencing it with data provided by Emanuele Miccolis, a PhD student in biodiversity at the University of Palermo, it becomes clear that Italy's largest lake is only partially protected by existing laws and directives: a slight stretch on the Venetian shore, and a more extensive area on the northwestern side, within the Alto Garda Bresciano Park, which also covers the lakeside stretch between the towns of Salò and Limone.

This fact, unfortunately, comes as no surprise. As the stories collected by our colleagues in Portugal and Turkey demonstrate, and as several experts informed us, it is already challenging to safeguard areas that are officially protected. Consequently, it is evidently much easier to exploit land that has no protection whatsoever, not even on paper. It is on this point that perhaps the most original and daring proposal we encountered during our investigation is based: granting the entire lake legal personality. A bold idea, with few precedents even internationally, but one that could be the only way to take an integrated approach to the entire lake ecosystem.

But le's take a step back and try to understand what Lake Garda is, and how it became the territory we know today.

Grand Hotel Garda

The first hotel on the shores of the lake was opened in 1881 by Luigi Wimmer in Gardone Riviera, in the province of Brescia, and it is still in operation today. Wimmer was one of Garibaldi's Thousand, and his idea was to establish a winter health resort, mainly for holidaymakers from Germany who could come to spend the winter in the sun, far from the cold of northern Europe.

As Giuseppe Solitro, a journalist who studied the history of Lake Garda, wrote in 1897:

 “With the beginning of September, the first Germans start to appear in the region, at first one by one, then in small groups, finally in large companies […] By the end of December the colony is complete: hotels and villas overflow, but the arrivals do not stop; each day brings more people, eager for blue skies and sunshine.”

Tourism on Lake Garda initially catered to the upper middle class and the aristocracy, who primarily stayed in a few select towns. The territory was still relatively underdeveloped and lacked infrastructure. After the inauguration of the Verona–Brescia railway line in 1852, with stations in Peschiera and Desenzano, it was not until 1929 that the Gardesana Occidentale road opened, connecting the towns on the Lombard shore. For the eastern state road, authorisation only came later, with a ministerial decree on March 27, 1959. Meanwhile, in 1948, the new Sirmione Thermal Baths were inaugurated, becoming one of the symbols of the postwar recovery and the tourist boom of the second half of the century.

Today, the numbers look very different. Tourist arrivals – that is, overnight stays – reached 25 million in 2023 across all shores of the lake, which spans two regions (Veneto and Lombardy) and the province of Trento. ISTAT data show a clear trend: in the ten years between 2014 and 2023, the latest year for which data are available, overall overnight stays grew by an average of around 30%, with the most significant increase on the Veneto shore (characterised by a high density of campsites), followed by Lombardy and Trentino.

However, these figures do not provide the whole picture, as they only consider commercial accommodation facilities, including hotels, hostels, B&Bs, holiday apartments, and residences. Missing from the data are rentals – whether short-term or long-term – of non-commercial properties, which make up the majority of listings on platforms like Airbnb. The already huge figures do not even reflect the actual total. And it is precisely this other form of tourism that continues to grow and create problems, as satellite images and our field documentation show: construction persists, and not for the benefit of residents.

The population of Desenzano del Garda, for instance, rose only slightly from 27,000 to 29,000 between 2011 and 2021. Sirmione’s population grew from 1,000 to 6,500 over the course of the 20th century, reaching 8,000 in 2021.

Small Sleeping Labyrinths

Starting from the database compiled by Norwegian biologist Zander Venter of the NINA research centre, later verified by the Green to Grey team of journalists coordinated by Arena for Journalism in Europe, we identified a series of construction sites along the southern shore of the lake. We focused in particular on the Lombard side, also influenced by reports of overcrowding, between the towns of Sirmione and Desenzano. On a Wednesday in late May this year, we went there ourselves to assess these new constructions.

After the May Day surge, tourist flows were actually relatively light, and the atmosphere was one of preparations for the season ahead. With photographs and drone footage, we documented several residential complexes, including apartment blocks and rows of villas, some of which were surprisingly equipped with quirky individual swimming pools. All relatively new or recently renovated, well finished – but with no shops, cafés, or bakeries. Beyond these houses, mostly closed, there was nothing of the activities that usually bring a neighbourhood to life.

Small suspended labyrinths, asleep.

Tourism has changed over time. But tourism also changes the territory and its inhabitants. “Basically, the tourism product has been broken down,” explains Francesco Visentin, geographer at the University of Udine. “From the grand hotels of the past, which continue to run their businesses, we now also have this illusion that everyone, through platforms, can profit from tourism. All you need is a property, even a small amount of capital, and a house to rent out. But it remains a question of extractive capitalism.”

In 1950, 25 million people travelled out of a world population of 2.5 billion – essentially 1%. Today, with 8 billion people, more than 1.5 billion travel, that is 20–25%. The fact is, space does not grow. “We don’t consider the concept of limits,” Visentin stresses again. “The space at Lake Garda is what it is. If you keep building infrastructure and attracting more and more people, all you do is increase the number of tourists arriving, not the liveability of the territory.”

The only way to make room for more tourists is to push out the people who actually live there year-round and bring the place to life. “I find Airbnb’s slogan amusing,” Visentin concludes bitterly, “the one that says ‘live like a local.’ But how can you live like a local if all the locals are gone?”

Tourism and sustainability: an oxymoron?

“Sirmione is a beautiful town, but unfortunately, there is no more room,” says Paolo Zanollo, local WWF representative in Brescia, speaking with us over a video call. “There is no more room, it's useless, there is no more space. So, continuing to attract tourists is truly suicidal. And yet, they are talking about water metros, boats. But there's no more room. Enough!”

If new accommodations mean more tourism, it is also true that some are trying to go in a different direction, promoting the lake as a place for sustainable, green, active tourism. As in other cases reported by our European colleagues during this investigation, in recent years Garda has seen considerable attention and promotion given to the development of so-called sustainable tourism: cycle paths, climbing walls, lakeside promenades, and yoga on the shore – tourism aimed at nature and sports enthusiasts. However, in such a fragile environment, is sustainability truly compatible with the pace of activities and visitor numbers we are currently recording? Many, including environmental groups and associations, stress the need to rethink the tourism offer at all levels, because in such a complex environment, no proposal is truly low impact.

Francesco Visentin underscores this as well: “Tourism works by constantly chasing: the beach alone is no longer enough, you have to add something to attract new visitors. Today Lake Garda has become a sports tourism hotspot,” explains the geographer.

Take the case of the cycle path, a project under heated discussion around the lake, which has even encountered strong opposition within environmental associations themselves. The “dream cycle path,” as it is called on several institutional websites, is a metal structure cantilevered over the cliffside, suspended 50 meters above the lake, alongside the Gardesana State Road 45bis, with a 2.5-meter-wide walkway and a thin steel barrier offering a “breathtaking view,” accessible even at night thanks to LED lighting. So far, a 12-kilometre stretch has been opened on the western shore between Lombardy and Trentino, but the ambition of local councils is to complete the entire 140-kilometre loop, allowing cyclists to circle the whole lake. Why then does this supposed masterpiece of green tourism face such opposition? Compared with day-trippers arriving by car, encouraging slow mobility on bicycles should be preferable. The problem is that building on a cliff, beyond the significant visual impact from the lake and, as we will see in the second part of this investigation, the impact on birdlife, also raises serious safety concerns.

“These are moving cliffs. Landslides happen. Frequently,” Zanollo explains again. “And just last year, while we were running a campaign on the dangers of this structure, there was the massive Tremosine landslide.” In December 2023, the Tremosine landslide was so extensive that it forced the closure of one of the roads below for weeks. An event that occurred without heavy rainfall and therefore is attributable solely to the fragility of the rocky shore. Due to its scale and the associated risks, it prompted even local institutions to reconsider the wisdom of continuing with the original plan.

The cycle path, Visentin adds, can thus be seen as yet another service designed for the tourism industry: it will not reduce the number of cars in circulation, but instead increase visitor numbers, drawn by this new attraction. It is not a service intended to provide residents with an alternative mode of transport or improve local well-being. To achieve this, a greater emphasis on other transportation modes would be necessary, such as investing in public transit. “Instead, it is clear,” Visentin concludes, “that this is simply another effect of the segmentation of the tourism offer. On its own, it may even seem sustainable, but placed within this broader context, it reveals its unsustainability.”

Erasing Nature

Building volumes increase. Activities offered on the lakefront, on the lake, and around the lake increase. And tourists’ expectations change. “A tourist capable of assessing the real level of environmental conservation of a place is increasingly rare,” explains Osvaldo Negra, zoologist and curator at MUSE, the Science Museum of Trento. He adds: “A tourist may find something pleasant that, from an environmental point of view, is in fact profoundly altered. For example, cycle paths and promenades along the shore are bordered by man-made boulders that have no connection to the original structure of the lakeshore. A neat, clean waterfront, without inconvenient vegetation. The boulders end, the asphalt or wooden-plank walkway begins, and the whole thing is enjoyable, as if it were the edge of a swimming pool. That is part of the problem: often a landscape that is comfortable for tourists is one from which much of nature has been erased.”

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