14 december 2014 BiocideTour in Campania ENTITLE project international delegation One day of visits and meetings with local communities in some of the most emblematic places of environmental injustice in Campania. Program and Participants The tour is open to the press To participate write to: [email protected] - 3342270795 Biocidio Tour is organized by A Sud and CDCA – Documentation Center on Environmental Conflicts, within the activities’ week of the research project ENTITLE - European Network for Political Ecology, an Initial Training Network under the Marie Curie actions of FP7, coordinated by ICTA at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and with the collaboration of 8 Universities, 2 NGOs and 1 SME Go to the project: http://www.cdca.it/spip.php?article2175 | Environmental Justice in Italy | A journey to the places of the Biocide From 14 to 19 December 2014 will be in Italy the international delegation of academics and researchers of the research project on Political Ecology ENTITLE - European Network for Political Ecology, for a working week in which will take place workshops, thematic panels, the presentation of Marco Armiero’s new book “Teresa e le altre. Storie di donne nella guerra dei rifiuti in Campania” and an international conference. Within the week of activities, A Sud associacion and CDCA – Documentation Centre on Environmental Conflicts organize on December 14th a tour that will visit the most emblematic territories of environmental injustice in Campania. The tour will be attended by some territorial committees from Acerra, Giugliano e Chiaiano who will meet the international delegations. Below can be find the details of the tour: dates, times, places, sponsoring organizations and all relevant information to participate. For further information: Visit the ENTITLE project web page Visit the CDCA web page Visit the A Sud web page | Why a Biocidio Tour | Choosing the installation of contaminating production, extractive and disposal facilities, on a given territory without first assessing the impact on the environment and the population, means to decide knowingly that those communities are "expendable" in a misguided idea of development. The dissolute exploitation of resources and territories operated to the detriment of the rights and beyond the limits of ecosystems endurance, destroys the environment, reduces the health and reveals the inseparable link between the latter and the healthiness of the territory. The systematic violation of the right to health through the poisoning of the territory and population exposure to pollutants has been called in Campania "Biocide". By working closely with some of the Campania’s realities in denouncing the link between bad land management (with particular reference to the waste cycle) and the increasingly frequent and serious violation of the right to health of the resident communities, the tour will be an opportunity to give visibility to the social paths ongoing on this theme. A path that in Campania has created a wide social coalition around the watchword StopBiocidio against environmental devastation that the territory lives. A map, the biocide one, that between Naples and Caserta travels hundreds of miles of territory ravaged by a model of waste disposal in landfills, incinerators, illegal discharges of toxic and industrial waste. The objective of the tour: to document and denounce the territorial contamination and its impact on communities living in the affected areas, allow the national and international press to meet in person the significant environmental, social, health and economic mismanagement of the territory, give voice to the affected communities and create opportunity for visibility for the social struggles and demands of the population, promote information and spread awareness on environmental issues, helping to build networks of mutual understanding and solidarity between the territories affected by similar problems. | The Biocide in Italy | In Italy as in the rest of Europe the presence of contaminated sites is relevant. According to the European Environment Agency in Italy are located thousands of sites, of which 57 (39 today, after the downgrading of 18 sites of regional interest) are defined by "national interest for reclamation" (SIN) and included in the “National Reclamation Programme" on the basis of the extent of environmental contamination, health risk and social alarm (DM 471/1999). The health impact of polluted sites is the subject of epidemiological investigations of geographical areas at risk. Started in 2007, with funding under the Strategic Programme Environment and Health of the Ministry of Health, the Project SENTIERI (National Epidemiologic Study of the Territories and Settlements Exposed to Risk of Pollution) evaluate the epidemiological evidence causal association between specific causes of death and environmental exposures. To this it has to be added the systematic impact of this dynamic in disadvantaged contexts in terms of social, political and economic: the periphery, no longer seen as simply a geographical concept, is methodically chosen as the site of activities that destroy the environment by producing health emergency over that burden of the same economic conditions of the population. This happens for example in areas where the agricultural economy is supplanted by the industrial economy or wherever is decided to install systems for municipal and industrial waste disposal, from landfill to incinerators, basing the choice on a purely speculative evaluation and not on techniques able to base the waste cycle on criteria of reducing the impact on health and environment | Biocidio tour in Campania | Sunday 14 December 2014 | time 7.30-20.00 (departure from Metro Marconi, B line, Roma) Campania is one of the Italian regions that not only pays one of the highest price to a deadly development model, but, because of it, became a symbol of the communities in struggle in defense of their territories and health. After the emergency began in 2008 local communities are gathered in a large social coalition that has chosen the slogan "Stop biocide" to denounce the strong impact of the territorial devastation on the health and life of the population, asking reclamations and health protection. Social mobilization around this issue has again reached in recent months, very high levels. In the aforementioned study SENTIERI, the list of towns of Campania is very long: in addition to Giugliano, inside Caserta and Naples area, Domitian coast and Aversa, there are, among more than 50 municipalities mentioned, Acerra, Aversa, Caivano, Casal di Principe, Casapesenna, Caserta, Maddaloni, Marcianise, Mariglianella, Marigliano, Melito di Napoli, Mondragone, Monte di Procida, Atella, Pozzuoli, San Tammaro, Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Santa Maria la Fossa. The situation is not really different along the Vesuvius coast, in the municipalities of Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Castellammare di Stabia, Ercolano, Naples, Pompei, Portici, San Giorgio a Cremano, Terzigno, Torre Annunziata, Torre del Greco and Trecase. The health emergency in these territories is determined on one side by a system of disposal of urban waste materials, produced mostly by the city of Naples, according to the logic of the landfill and incineration, and, secondly, by the criminal disposal of special waste through burning and burying. In many cases, in the same sites is possible to find industrial waste illegally disposed and urban waste materials disposed in a decade of waste emergency and subsequent commissarial management. The toxic tour will visit some of the sites that represent the health and environmental emergency in the region. | Land of Fires - Terra dei Fuochi | “Terra dei Fuochi”, the Land of fires is the now famous phrase which indicates the territory comprising the towns of Qualiano, Giugliano, Atella, Caivano, Acerra, Nola, Marcianise, Succivo, Frattaminore, Frattamaggiore, Mondragone, Castelvolturno and Melito di Napoli, affected by toxic fires with which the Camorra is illegally disposing of industrial waste materials, when not through burial in the fields. Since 2010 there have been spills of industrial and nuclear waste materials from northern Italy and northern Europe and it is now undeniable that the increase in the incidence of tumors in this area is related to these phenomena. According to a ARPA Campania report in 2011, an area of 3,000,000 square meters between Regi Lagni, Uttaro, Masseria del Pozzo-Schiavi (in Giugliano area) and the Pianura neighborhood of the city of Naples, results to be affected by a massive presence of toxic waste materials. The so called "Pact for the Land of Fires", signed on July, 11 between the President of the Campania Region, the presidents of the provinces of Naples and Caserta, the mayors of the municipalities affected by the phenomenon of the fires (including the two chief towns), a delegate of the Minister Interior, the local health authorities and associations active in the area as the ISDE- Doctors for the Environment, has produced few results and fires continue undisturbed. The tour will lead at the following locations: Acerra A2a Incinerator The construction of the incinerator in Acerra (Naples) began in August 2004 by the company Fisia, as representative of the FIBE group, for a capacity of about 600,000 tons of waste treated, built to burn Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) under Ministerial Decree February 5, 1998 as part of the waste plan of the Campania region but designed with an old "grid" technology that allows any waste