Nature as a Subject of Rights: Who Encompasses Whom, the City or Nature?

The event “Nature as a Subject of Rights: Who Encompasses Whom, the City or Nature?” proposes a critical and sensitive reflection on the relationship between urban territories and ecosystems, grounded in the recognition of Nature as a subject of rights. In the face of the climate crisis, social inequality, and environmental degradation, it becomes urgent to rethink how cities are planned, expanded, and sustained. The guiding question is: does the city encompass Nature, or is it Nature that resists within the city? The activity seeks to provoke a reversal of logic: rather than considering rivers, trees, and other elements as mere resources to be incorporated into urban planning, it calls for recognizing them as agents with their own rights, capable of influencing and shaping urban life. From this perspective, the ethical, political, and technical responsibilities of urbanism expand—especially in peripheral contexts, where conflicts between urban expansion and ecosystems are most evident. The event will take the form of a dialogue table, bringing together experts, activists, and residents of urban territories to foster interdisciplinary and collective exchanges on possible pathways toward a city that acknowledges Nature not as an object, but as a subject of life and of the future.