Dario Li Gioi

10,000 square meters, maximum depth 9 meters. 350 spontaneous botanical species, four habitats protected by European standards to defend biodiversity, almost ninety species of birds and thirty species of dragonflies, a third of all those present in Italy. It’s Lake Bullicante. A natural lake. A fortune for the Prenestino Labicano and Casal Bertone neighborhoods where the lake is located. A fortune for the lungs in an area with a high rate of pollution.

His problem? Being at the center of speculative building interests.

But what is the history of Lake Bullicante? It is a paradigmatic story of how we should act in times of climate change. It is the story of a battle that began in 1992, to free the entire area of the old Snia Viscosa factory from concrete and prevent more concrete from being thrown. Today the 40,000 m2 of the former factory in the hands of Ponente 1978 are missing. These are the meters that are missing to save an outpost of biodiversity.

But it is also the story of a struggle. Of a group of stubborn people.

For many, the possibility of this area remaining intact is nothing more than a utopia. But if utopia can be classified as the ideal of a better society and therefore a fundamentally unreal place, the space of Lake Bullicante can perhaps be defined in its opposite, in the sense of something that is instead well rooted in the here and now: a heterotopia.

Today the reconquest also involves those in the neighborhood and in the city who have remained silent and far from this reality.

As environmental pioneer Rachel Carson said in Silent Spring in 1970: "We have therefore fallen into such a state of hypnosis that we accept as inevitable what is negative and harmful, almost as if we have lost willpower or foresight." tend towards it. What is good?"