Italian protest movement
No Cav is an Italian protest movement that arose in the early 21st century, criticising the Carrara marble and carbonate quarries in the Apuan Alps.
Name and flag.
The phrase "No Cav", short for "No Cave" (No Quarries, in Italian), was used for the first time in an article from Il Tirreno in 2014 to define the activists who had taken part in a demonstration organized by Salviamo le Apuane ("Save Apuan Alps").
The No Cav flag is a stylized black and white representation of the Vara viaduct of the Carrara Private Marble Railway crossed by a large red X, above which are the words "NO CAV", also in red, on a white background.
This symbol, whose graphic design recalls that of the Italian No TAV movement, first appeared in 2020, during an event organized by the environmentalist Gianluca Briccolani, who the following year, with Claudio Grandi and others, founded the Apuane Libere ("Free Apuan Alps") association.
The flag and the word "No Cav" itself are neither used nor accepted by all groups of this movement and some of them prefer to use more specific definitions.
Characteristics.
The No Cav movement is classified by the Italian Atlas of Environmental Conflicts, part of the Environmental Justice Atlas, as a "proactive conflict in favor of sustainable alternatives".
Over the years, environmentalists have managed to develop in civil society a widespread movement of opinion sensitive to the theme of safeguarding the Apuan Alps.
The methods of opposition used by No Cav activists include demonstrations, marches, flash mobs, appeals, petitions, demonstrative actions (such as the one at the Giro d'Italia 2021 or on the summit of Mont Blanc), roadblocks, lawsuits, political initiatives (at local, regional, national, European and international level), public information, pressure on companies, preparation of independent documents, and media activism.
Among the campaign slogans that have arisen from demonstrations, besides No Cav, there is "Basta Cave" (lit. "Enough Quarries": "Stop the Quarries"), "Giù le mani dalla montagna" ("Hands off the Mountain"), "Fermiamo la devastazione" ("Let's stop the Devastation"), "Help Apuan Alps", "Le cave uccidono il passato e il futuro" ("The quarries are killing the past and the future"), "Excavation devastation", and more.
In addition, the No Cav movement has at times supported other environmentalist initiatives and actions in defence of landforms not directly connected to the issue of the Apuan Alps.
Affiliated entities.
Campaigns in opposition to quarrying activity in the Apuan Alps have been ongoing for years, pursued by many and varied groups:
Various Italian intellectuals and personalities have stood up in defence of the Apuan Alps. Among them are: Andrea Camilleri, Moni Ovadia, Salvatore Settis, Adriano Prosperi, Paolo Maddalena, Tomaso Montanari, Roberta De Monticelli, Maurizio Maggiani, Mario Perrotta, Alberto Asor Rosa, Paolo Cognetti (who has declared himself to be "truly dismayed, beyond being angry, at the condition of the Apuans"), Enzo Fileno Carabba, Angelo Baracca, Vittorio Emiliani, Edoardo Salzano, Pancho Pardiv, Alessandro Gogna, Claudio Lombardi, Alberto Magnaghi, Andrea Lanfriv (a main speaker at the large No Cav protest of 2021), and Rossano Ercolini. The cartoonist Sergio Staino made a cartoon on the subject.
The No Cav campaign also finds supporters beyond Italian borders, especially in Germany. International personalities close to the No Cav positions include Vandana Shiva and Raúl Zibechi. On a political level, the inconvenient issue of closing down quarries has often been snubbed by parties, with some exceptions such as Partito della Rifondazione Comunista ("Communist Refoundation Party"), Potere al Popolo ("Power to the People Party"), and individual politicians, such as Pietro Ichino and Tommaso Fattori. Only in 2021 a party, Europa Verde ("Green Europe"), led by Eros Tetti, includes in its program the closure of the quarries falling within the Regional Natural Park of the Apuan Alps.
History.
Mining in the Apuan Alps.
The Apuan Alps stone quarries were probably already used since the Iron Age by the Ligurians of Ameglia, but the actual mining activity developed from the Roman era, and experienced the greatest development under Julius Caesar (48-44 BC). Of the oldest quarries distributed in the Torano, Miseglia and Colonnata basins, not much remains, since the mining activity which continued over the centuries has caused their progressive destruction. In this way, ancient quarries such as that of Polvaccio and Mandria (Torano) and Canalgrande (Miseglia) have been lost. On the other hand, the quarries of La Tagliata (Miseglia) and Fossacava (Colonnata) are still intact, although poorly valued from a historical-archaeological and tourist point of view. Another quarry of certainly ancient origin is the so-called Cava Romana di Forno ("Forno Roman Quarry"), subject of a legal dispute for environmental violations and whose environmental licence was not renewed in 2017.
The peak of celebrity of Carrara marble occurred in the Renaissance as it was used by Michelangelo, who used to personally choose the blocks to work on.
Between the end of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a rapid increase in quarries, which began to be concentrated in the hands of a few large concessionaires, and the "industrialization" of mining, which attracted a large number of workers from the mountain communities, moving them from traditional agro-pastoral occupations to mining ones. The construction of the Carrara Private Marble Railway and the Port of Carrara dates back to this period. This process continued in the twentieth century, with the construction of infrastructures such as the Balzone cableway, in 1907 and the branch for Arni of the Versilia tramway, inaugurated in 1923.
In addition to those of marble, there were once also mines of manganese, mercury, iron, pyrite, magnesite, dolomite and yet more. In 2015 the case of severe thallium contamination of the aquifer, and consequently of the aqueduct, of Pietrasanta exploded due to the perite mines of Valdicastello, abandoned in the 1980s and never reclaimed.
In the post-war period, particularly in the late one, the mining activity has grown dramatically in terms of material removed, according to the magazine Focus "in the last 20 years, more than two thousand years of history have been excavated here". However, according to Corriere della Sera, the number of people directly employed in the quarries went from 16,000 in the 1950s to about 1,000 today.
Movements for the protection of the Apuan Alps.
In 1985, following a petition started many years before and the proposal of a popular initiative law in 1978, the Tuscan Region established the Regional Natural Park of the Apuan Alps. In 1997, with the Regional Law 65/1997, it was reduced the perimeter from about 54,000 hectares to the current 20,598 hectares, in order to protect the presence of marble quarries, reclassified as "area contigua" ("contiguous area"). Due to this reclassification, in 2021 the Council of State rejected the appeal of environmental associations against the reopening of quarries in these areas, unless they overlap with protection areas such as SCI, SRI or SPA.
Already in the 1980s, however, there were environmentalist struggles that led to the closure of the dolomite quarries in Forno (Massa) in the 1990s. At least since 2000 there have been appeals by environmentalist associations against the Apuan marble industry.
In 2000, through a national law still valid today, it was decreed the establishment of the Parco Archeominerario delle Alpi Apuane ("Apuan Alps Archaeology and Mining Park") to protect the ancient mining activity historical evidences from the current one, but its actual establishment has been suspended since 2006, despite the favorable opinions of local authorities In order to overcome the delays, in 2003 the Regional Natural Park of the Apuan Alps established the "Sistema museale di archeologia mineraria delle Alpi Apuane" ("Museum System of Mining Archaeology of the Apuan Alps").
From the experiences of struggle for the preservation of the Apuan Alps in the last decades of the 20th century, the current environmental conflict and the current No Cav movement would have developed. According to the Italian Atlas of Environmental Conflicts, part of the Environmental Justice Atlas, this "proactive conflict in favor of sustainable alternatives" would have originated in 2009, the year in which Salviamo le Apuane, founded by Eros Tetti, launched the first online mobilization, with a good response and a consequent growth and diffusion on the territory.
In 2010, this movement presented an articulated plan called "PIPSEAA" ("Piano Programma di Sviluppo Economico Alternativo per le Apuane", "Plan-Program for Alternative Economic Development of the Apuan Alps") for a gradual economic transition of the territory that would allow it to get rid of marble without employment shocks.
In 2014, the Tuscan regional council approved a plan for the "gradual closure of quarries", promoted by regional councillor Anna Marson, and then withdrawn following pressure from Confindustria. For the first time, the newspaper Il Tirreno used the word "No Cav" to define the activists who fought against the Apuan quarries.
In the same year, following the umpteenth flood that hit the city of Carrara, the "Assemblea Permanente Carrara" ("Carrara Permanent Assembly") was born. The activists occupied the town hall for two months. This group fights for the environmental protection of the Carrara territory and sometimes expressed very critical positions towards the quarries.
In 2015, Tommaso Fattori entered the Tuscan Regional Council with the list "Sì Toscana a Sinistra" ("Yes Tuscany to the Left"), contributing to keep up the pressure on marble quarries, also through the presentation of numerous amendments to regional laws.
In 2016, a group of associations called "Coordinamento Apuano" ("Apuan Coordination") composed by: Legambiente, Salviamo le Apuane, WWF, Club Alpino Italiano, Fondo Ambiente Italiano, Italia Nostra, Rete dei comitati per la difesa del territorio, Società dei Territorialisti, Unione Italiana Sport Per tutti, Federparchi, Società Speleologica Toscana, Amici delle Alpi Apuane, signed a document entitled "Manifesto per le Alpi Apuane" ("Apuan Alps Manifesto"), in which they argued and detailed a green economic transition plan that would lead the Apuan territory to free itself from the marble supply chain, focusing on the defense of the environment and landscape, tourism and agroforestry productions. As a matter of fact, there are already valuable agricultural and gastronomic productions of the Apuan Alps, among which the wine production, in particular the Candia dei Colli Apuani, which could be promoted and strengthened.
The Europa Verde party led by Eros Tetti, which aims to close the quarries falling within the Regional Natural Park of the Apuan Alps, in 2020 proposed an abrogative referendum regarding the regional regulations more favorable to quarries.
In 2020, a petition was also started for the establishment of a national park including the Apuan Alps or to merge them with the already existing and contiguous National Park of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines in order to ensure an increased protection of the mountain range. In the same year, the group Athamanta was born, which combines the experience of social centers to that of environmentalism. The first No Cav flags appeared.
In 2021 the Club Alpino Italiano proposed the establishment of a Cultural Park of the Apuan Alps.
Also in 2021, the association Apuane Libere was born. In July of the same year, the newborn association organized a big demonstration whose testimonial was Andrea Lanfri and in which 31 other associations participated. On that occasion there were scuffles at Passo Sella, where the demonstrators came into contact with a counter demonstration in support of the quarries organized by Confindustria.
In September 2021, the association Salviamo le Apuane presented to the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights an extensive dossier on the Apuan situation, written with the help of the Wageningen University researcher Chiara Macchi.
At the beginning of 2022, the Council of State rejected the appeal of many marble companies against the new "Extraction Plan of the Region of Tuscany", stating that it is the right and duty of the region to protect the environment, especially of a "unicum" like the Apuan Alps, even by limiting the freedom of economic initiative.
Arguments.
Environmental pollution.
Extractive activity has a negative impact on aquifers due to pollution of soil and surface and groundwater, with both environmental and public health implications for the populations that are supplied with it.
Marmettola, marble dust mixed with oils and sludge from quarrying, should be disposed of as special waste, but is often not properly managed and ends up dispersed in large quantities, constituting a serious environmental pollution problem.
Due to the high mechanization and industrialization of the mining processes, other pollutants such as heavy metals and, especially, hydrocarbons are dispersed into the mountain environment and groundwater in considerable quantities.
Other relevant impacts are the dispersion of dust into the atmosphere, noise and the abandonment of waste at high altitudes.
Stone companies have also been accused by environmentalists of greenwashing.
Destruction