CLIMATE ROUTES

The environmental and climate crisis affects people’s lives. A land degraded and/or affected by extreme weather events is no longer able to sustain those who live there and this may lead to mass migrations, globally. The ‘Climate Routes’ is a project promoted by Systasis with a broad multidisciplinary partnership, implemented through a three-year grant from the Italian foundation Fondazione Cariplo, from January 2023 to December 2025. The aim of the project is to stimulate the understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon and reaching a shared definition of environmental and climate migrants, in order to promote their protection. The initiative aims to gather insights on the phenomenon, to nurture awareness of the condition of environmental/climate migrants, starting with activities aimed to listen to and recount the experiences of the migrants themselves, enhancing their knowledge and experiences.

Specifically, the project intends to:

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​extend and innovate research on environmental and climate migrations through the analysis of disaggregated and qualitative data collected directly from migrants, helping to build a knowledge base on the current situation, adopting field research methods, such as observation, questionnaires and interviews, as well as resorting to artistic tools of cultural mediation;

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promote the possibility of filling the definitional and normative gap in the field of environmental and climate migration, through legal advice and assistance also in pilot strategic judgments, in order to stimulate, first of all in the jurisprudence, a definition of environmental and climate migrant that can be generally shared and participated in, to which protection for people migrating for reasons (also or mainly) related to the consequences of the ongoing climate change and crisis can be linked;

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​stimulate attention and debate in the public opinion and among policy-makers through dissemination and awareness-raising activities; fostering a culture of care, active listening and protection of environmental and climate migrants in public and private operators in the sector and accompanying them in developing new services in this field.

The innovativeness of the project consists in:

I) researching and asking for these data right from the source, from the migrant himself with the collaboration of the operators in the sector;

II) finding creative and inclusive ways to valorise and narrate these data, also in order to develop new strategies of judicial protection.

Finally, the project activity and its results will be narrated creatively, in public, free and accessible spaces, in order to raise awareness and generate empowerment towards a complex and urgent issue.

LEGAL AID DESK

Systasis, in the framework of the project ‘Climate Routes’, has planned and launched the first legal desk for environmental and climate migrants.

The service will be provided, by the Association and the project partners, at Systasis, in Milan and online, for the benefit of individuals, associations and migrants’ reception centres.

Advice will also be offered on the possibility of strategic and pilot litigation in favour of people forced to move and abandon their land, including for environmental and climatic reasons.

The creator and coordinator of the desk is lawyer Veronica Dini, coordinator of the project.