In general, environmental movements work primarily on the national level in industrialized countries and on the grassroots level elsewhere. This is not the case in Italy, however, as environmental activism is prevalent only on the local, grassroots level. Italy's environmental movement followed the same pattern as that in other countries: it began with student protests in the 1960s and 1970s, environmental legislation in the 1970s, an increase in Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations in the 1980s, and the formation of a Green Party. Today, the movement looks much different from the environmental movement in other countries because lobbying and professional tactics are simply not used. This project proposes that Italy's political structure provides more opportunities for activists to be effective on local levels through legislative initiatives, petitions, litigation and binding referendums while its national government is inaccessible. As one example, citizens mobilized around the threat of nuclear energy in the 1980s and successfully passed three referendums that effectively ruled out the possibility of nuclear power in Italy. It is a result of Italy's political structure that effective environmental campaigns like the nuclear example can occur through direct or indirect action in communities.