No-Porto
The Fiumara Grande district in Fiumicino, with its vaguely pasoliniana atmosphere, stretches along the Lazio coastline near Rome. This fishing village is a concentration of beauty where, next to the old lighthouse abandoned for 50 years, large melancholic spiders stand out—they are the old nets of cinematic memory, now no longer functioning. Here, the world seems to have stopped. The variety of the landscape and its functions have made the area attractive to companies acting with speculative purposes to create a new port. The first project dates back to the early 1970s; in the following years, work was assigned to different companies and halted by seizures and occupations. The occupation, which experienced ups and downs, ended in 2017 with the granting of free access near the fishing nets—a dream that lasted little, as the Royal Caribbean Cruises company bought the area and proposed a new project that on paper seems to have an even greater impact on the territory than previous ones. The project provides for the construction of a tourist-cruise port with about 700 berths, capable of accommodating large cruise ships up to 72 meters high, more than twice the height of the old lighthouse, which will remain a historical symbol of the area. Environmental committees and the “Collettivo No Porto” denounce a strong negative impact on the area, predicting pollution, concrete pouring, increased traffic, the complete loss of bathing activities, and a loss of historical memory linked to the lighthouse and the bilancioni, traditional activities on the coast. They also highlight hydrogeological risks, mobility impact, pollutant emissions from large ships (nitrogen oxides, sulfur, and fine particles), and the threat to the coastal and marine ecosystem.
