A Sud Ecologia e Cooperazione
A Sud is an independent Italian association founded in 2003.
We deal with environmental conflicts, those battles of defence and resistance that men and women, in Italy and all over the world, carry out to defend the right to choose the future of their territories. We work to support these communities, offering them a voice and space through our channels, designing together alternative models of city, state and planet management; providing support and tools through independent research, citizen science, training in schools, universities, territories and companies.
We want to build bridges of active solidarity between the global North and South of the world: our experience in the field of international cooperation has taught us that what happens in the smallest, even remote areas of our country, mirrors what happens on the other side of the planet, and vice versa.
Many years ago, accompanying indigenous communities in the conflicts in defence of their territories led us to take a fresh look at our own conflicts, the battles against environmental devastation, pollution, large-scale construction projects and trade agreements. We clearly saw the thread that united them: the need to rethink a model of society and economy based on the exploitation of human beings and nature and on the appropriation of resources by the few at the expense of the many.
Convinced of the importance of promoting research and documentation activities as a support to concrete action and territorial intervention, in 2007 we opened the first Documentation Centre on Environmental Conflicts in Italy, CDCA, which became an independent and autonomous research organisation in 2010. The centre deals with mapping the most emblematic cases of conflict arising around the control of natural resources and common goods and reporting on general issues such as climate change, energy and production models, and ecological reconversion.
Since 2017, we engaged in citizen science as a foundamental tool through which to support the development of environmental justice, improve environmental policies and community engagement.
Among our citizen science activities in the city and province of Rome:
- Soil contamination monitoring: CleanUp 100Celle: http://cdca.it/english-clean-up-100celle/
- Ecomorphological quality of fluvial environment: WalkUp Aniene: https://asud.net/walk-up-aniene/
- Fresh Water quality monitoring: RomaUp https://asud.net/progetti/romaup/ https://asud.net/giu-al-tevere-dossier-sullattivita-di-monitoraggio-partecipato-del-fiume-tevere/
- Air quality monitoring in Colleferro: ComunitAria: http://cdca.it/comunitaria/