TERRAMALA

“I don’t think anyone will survive,” said Schiavone, repentant, in his secret testimony. “In Casapesenna, Casal di Principe, Castel Volturno, the inhabitants are all at risk of dying from cancer within twenty years.” Schiavone was former treasurer of Casalesi clan. The Clan is based in Casal di Principe and have been controlling Caserta and most of the territory of the so-called “Land of fires”: an area in Campania, involving 55 municipalities situated in the provinces of Caserta and Naples, sadly known for being the most polluted area of this region, due to huge amounts of toxic waste that have been illegally dumped there over the past 20 years.

National and international industries have been illegally disposing hazardous waste thanks to deals with local politicians and the Camorra, cutting down the enormous costs of legal disposing.

Waste is not only buried underground, in fields where agriculture and farming are present, but also incinerated (that is where the name Land of fires comes from).This is the greatest environmental disaster in Italy, affecting not only soil, and the related products of agriculture and breeding, but also the aquifer. Leachate is flowing underground; poisons are filling up enormous caves; the air is unbreathable due to miasmas and the smoke coming from pyres set on fire. Day by day, the lives of people living near the dumping sites are put at risk, especially the ones of children and young people.

On January, 2 2016 after Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato si” on the environment and after years of denunciations and protests, the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the Italian Institute for Health) has finally officialised and certified the connection between pollution and the alarming increase of cancer cases in the region. Literally, “in the land of fires mortality is higher also due to exposition to a system of environmental pollution elements, emitted or released by illegal dumps and/or by uncontrolled incineration of hazardous waste”.

According on the last report of the Italian Institute for Health in this area of Campania there is a rate of tumours 11% higher than the National average rate among men, 9% among women and 7% among children.

This photographic work is actually made of two strands, continuously intertwining and diverging. On one hand, the story of a land, tormented by a malicious and underground pollution, that’s sentencing the inhabitants to death. On the other hand, the purpose is to tell the story of its inhabitants: young children who died of cancer like Riccardo who died when he was only 22 months old or Salvatore 12 years old - both suffered from a lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2009; inconsolable but courageous mothers, who unceasingly march and protest against this massacre like Marzia Caccioppoli, 40 years old, activist and member of the association “Noi, genitori di tutti” (“We, everybody’s parents); ill people, fighting daily to keep alive like Martina, 5 years old, diagnosed with a bone sarcoma; teenagers who lost their parents and claim a better future. All these people are united by the same destiny and by such a strong attachment to their origins that if you dare ask them why don’t they move somewhere else, you might get an answer like “And where shall I go?”