INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP THE ALPS AND THE ARDENNES: SHARING EXPERIENCES AMONG TRANSBOUNDARY MOUNTAIN AREAS Interregional Cooperation in the Apennines Massimo Sargolini, professor at the University of Camerino, Italy with Maria Teresa Idone, phd University of Camerino, Italy 1
The mountains, once thought as marginal areas, are now destined to become new centralities, the tourism destinations.
the desire to escape for a few hours or a few days from the hectic life of the city; in other words, the so called "praise of slow
a therapeutic value of the contact with nature is being increasingly recognized
The atopic spaces: the sense of disorientation In contemporary places
lead the people to feel the need of new genuine and real contacts with the territory
the increasing of the infrastructure accessibility to many mountain areas, once isolated. New infrastructures foster new contacts
the development of electronic linkages that make possible to work by sitting somewhere in a pleasant mountain area, the effects of the globalization that, make it possible, in real time, to link local goods to the global networks,
These new users (of urban origin), attracted by the mountains, are often inexperienced: they often don't really know about customs and traditions of the mountain, its fragility, its resources and risks
These new users, when they increase in number, may damage the ecological balance, the landscape values, the efficiency of services, the local economic dynamics,...... raising urban loads up over the threshold of the carrying capacity of these areas of mountain fragile and delicate...
.. but, above all, they may affect the attractiveness of the mountain itself, and thus cause a degradation that affects the economic potential of the mountain itself,...
For this reason, the management of the mountain resource that was once left to the spontaneity and improvisation of local actors, now needs to be controlled more strictly relying on the sciences of urban planning and design,...
For these reasons, there's a growing awareness to find new ways of planning for a sustainable development by making use of the actual governance systems. In this direction, in Italy, we had a long season of park and landscape planning such as..
Cilento national park
Gargano national park
Vesuvio park plane
Sibillini mountain national park
Apuane Alps regional park
Today we have the possibility to explore new paths to reach the sustainable development of mountain areas: The cross-border and interregional cooperation. See, in particular: The Alpine Convention The Carpathian Convention Now we are working for the Apennine
International Conference "The Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention: sharing the experiences. The Apennines, a European mountain range 23-24 aprile, 2014, Sarnano Italian Presidency of the Alpine Convention and Carpathian Convention with University of Camerino
Many issues being examined:
- Heritage and cultural landscapes
Ecological ecosystem
High mountain environment
Conservative cultural environment
Urban integrated rural environment
Periurban lower mountain areas of central and southern Apennine
These contents influence and guide many human activities: Reducing ecological footprint Closing ecological cycles shortening food supply chain Urban agriculture Outdoor sports and recreation activities Educational activities
The study case of Apennine is interesting because talking about the Apennines is, in fact, already talking about Europe. From the geological and geomorphological point of view, the Apennines are the inner heart of Europe, an offshoot of the Alps which join with the Northern Apennine area.
Then, as regard at the biotic aspects, the Apennines are not only a part of Europe, but they also incorporate Europe as a whole since, given their size and the different climatic influences, they host all the EU vegetation patterns, which penetrates in the Mediterranean region, with a very interesting spread of biodiversity.
A lot of different landscape units
Abandonment and loss of identity
The phenomenon of abandonment goes together with the loss of identity and reduced safeguard of the territory from the local communities, which live in mountain regions as well as in the valleys, and participate in ensuring the functionality of the mountain system
Abandonment and idrogeological crisis
The risk is to transform into islands some landscapes and resources causing the loss of a functionality that, if well managed, guarantees the resilience of landscapes and provides a quantifiable economic value.
According to this approach, which keeps together the natural resources and cultural historical heritage, it is possible to build a sustainable development path for the Apennines based on the quality of the resources of mountain landscapes, where innovation and local entrepreneurship can play an important role.
In this framework, the landscape may become the main focus of development projects of the Apennines, triggering conservation and active management processes able to provide solutions particularly in the current European economic trends.
In the past we talked about Apennine development in several projects.
II remember APE Apennine European Park
Now the new is that we are trying to built a scenario of cooperation between different regions and within the scientists could give their contributions to set up new policies. This is a scenario where the researchers and policy makers work together for the sustainable development of mountain areas.
The first outcome is the Sarnano Charter The main purpose: Aiming at fostering a continuous debate on the Italian Apennine context based on an integrated approach, even in view of the new challenges and objectives born in Europe, the following remarks could be the basis for an action plan for the Apennines as a European mountain range:
- the efforts and the initiatives already emerged in the past have recognized the complexity and richness of the Apennines and showed the necessity to establish a dialogue between institutions, organizations and associations, to promote coordinated and shared actions for sustainable development in the Apennines; - the social characteristics of inner region and the challenges that characterize the context of the Apennines show the need to address them according to an integrated strategic approach;
- the existence and availability of management tools and bodies working for the integrated management of European mountains, such as the Alps, Carpathians, Dinaric Alps, Pyrenees, represent a significant point of departure to inspire an action program aimed to reach an inter-regional agreement for the sustainable development of the Apennines.
In light of these considerations, some strategic recommendations emerged: - the possibility to use the experiences of partnerships and mountain cooperation, such as the Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention;
- the possibility to use information, data sets and existing tools, developed also within European programmes, in order to develop a scientific basis that could support an integrated strategic approach; - the possibility to involve institutions and local authorities and to start a fruitful dialogue on interregional cooperation through the sharing of knowledge and testing of successful governance tools and good practices.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION massimo.sargolini@unicam.it mariateresa.idone@unicam.it