Introductions Cristiana Perrella – Artistic Director, MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma
Giulia Fiocca and Lorenzo Romito – Curators of the exhibition Abitare le rovine del presente
The Territorial Forum Parco delle Energie meets Michele De Sanctis – Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome
Lorenzo Manni – SIGEA – Italian Society of Environmental Geology
Massimiliano Tabusi – Italian Geographical Society
Paolo Buonora – AIPAI – Italian Association for the Industrial Archaeological Heritage
Giovanni Mattias – WWF Rome and Metropolitan Area
Orietta Brombin – PAV Parco Arte Vivente, Turin (remote)
Conclusions Sergio Scalia – Councillor for Budget, Heritage, Urban Planning and Decentralisation of Municipio V
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Lake Bullicante, the only natural lake in Rome, hosts an ecosystem of extraordinary biological richness and represents an essential resource for the quality of life of residents in the surrounding neighborhoods. Defending it means resisting overdevelopment and promoting an ecological future grounded in the protection of common goods, environmental health, and the right to the city. The spontaneous and unexpected rewilding of abandoned urban sites, such as Lake Bullicante, teaches us that the Anthropocene is not only the geological era of greenhouse effects and climate crisis, but also a time in which nature’s renewed creative unpredictability is generating forms of life capable of surviving human devastation. These rewilded sites – shaped by anthropogenic extractivism and the unforeseen emergence of water – are now referred to as emerging urban ecosystems. In Rome especially, they form a crucial network of places for protecting the urban environment and supporting the health of city inhabitants through the ecosystem services they provide.The project and actions to be undertaken in these places should not aim at allowing humans to reclaim a rewilding process in which they have often acted as fierce antagonists. Rather, the goal should be to understand, share, document, narrate, perceive, socialize, and support this natural process.
In this sense, the grassroots experience of the Forum Territoriale Parco delle Energie — which for more than thirty years has fought to defend the ex Snia area and Lake Bullicante — represents a concrete example, indeed a paradigm, for the care and management of this complex natural commons. It has inspired the vision and promotion of a unique Naturalistic-Archaeological Park in Rome, where nature and industrial archaeology, art and scientific research come together to shape a new landscape: a place of pleasure, knowledge, education, and well-being for everyone.
The meeting proposes a dialogue among local communities, scientific institutions, and public actors to reflect on possible forms of alliance and shared governance for emerging urban ecosystems. It is an opportunity to imagine tools, practices, and policies capable of recognizing the ecological and social value of these places and of building a new paradigm for the protection of the urban environment.
The event will take place within the exhibition Abitare le rovine del presente.
Free admission until capacity is reached.