Legambiente

Legambiente is an Italian environmentalist association with roots in the anti-nuclear movement that developed in Italy and throughout the Western world in the second half of the '70s. Founded in 1980 as part of the ARCI, it later became and a stand-alone organisation. Originally known as Lega per l'ambiente (League for the Environment), it changed name during the IV National Congress held in Parma in 1992 to avoid confusion with other movements, especially with the 'Lega' political party.

In more than thirty years of activity, Legambiente organized environmental monitoring campaigns in Italy (Green Schooner, Green Train, and others) and activities of voluntary (Clean Beaches, Clean Up the World).

Legambiente organized environmental education campaigns, promoted and increased the mobilization against smog and referendums of 1987 and 2011 against the nuclear energy, fought against illegal building and lifted the veil on the illegal dumping of waste and the action of ecomafie, with an annual report on environmental crimes related to the activities of criminal organizations.

The association promotes, among other things, the use of alternative energy and renewable energy, the energy conservation, the preservation of some protected areas, fighting illegal waste management. It annually processes an accurate analysis of the situation of ' environment in Italy with the Ambiente Italia report.

Since 2004 Legambiente organizes Voler Bene all'Italia (i.e. loving Italy), an initiative for the protection and enhancement of the municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants, which constitute an important part of the historical and cultural Italian.

The association publishes the monthly La Nuova Ecologia (New Ecology).

On 26 April 1986 an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine released a radioactive cloud across half of Europe. In Italy the first reactions of the authorities tend to downplay the impact of the accident. The magazine La Nuova Ecologia and the Lega per l'Ambinte, in early May, show evidence during a press conference of the data about radiation levels detected in the country. In the following days the authorities forbid the consumption of some foods such as milk and salad. On May 10 in Rome a great popular event attended by more than 200,000 people marks the first step towards a referendum that the following year puts an end to the use of nuclear energy in Italy.

The uprise against nuclear power represents a turning point in the history of environmentalism in Italy: more than one million people sign to ask for the referendum, the Lega per l'ambiente and WWF double their members, and the general election of 1987 the Greens get nearly a million votes.

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Wikipedia