PROJECT PRESENTATION

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1.1 Introduction

The sub-project Integrated Landscape Park. A plan for an innovative and responsible landscape governance of “marginal” areas (acronym:  Landsible) is part of the European project Interreg III C (Interregional cooperation) called “ProgreSdec/ESDP Steps” (www.progresdec.org), that aims to develop a confrontation on the realization of the principles of the “European Spatial Development Perspective” through the exchange of experiences of regional and local planning and the experimentation of shared methods and tools for the territorial planning. In detail, Landsible (which activities will carry out from October 2006 to September 2007), faces the project topic “Policies and instruments for landscape management and the sustainable development” (topic 1), proposing a pilot project that works out and uses innovative and shared methodologies and experiments these ones in the realization of the ESDP.

 

Following this aim, the Province of Cuneo has built a partnership with the following boards: Parco Regionale Marturanum of the Municipality of Barbarano Romano (province of Viterbo), Province of Agrigento and Municipality of Aetos (Greece).

 
1.2 Problems and needs - background

Through a first comparison and reciprocal comparison and knowledge among partners, it became almost clear that, in spite of the different contexts, countries and institution typologies, partners shared a common background of needs, problems, and expectations concerning a project on the topic of landscape management. This overall and preliminary common view may be summarized as follows.

        

Problems/needs: lack of a general landscape plan, that harmonizes its different elements-components (economical, environmental, territorial-political, social, cultural, etc.); lack of a tool that harmonizes (coercively or through the individual and social responsibility) the private dimension with the public landscape dimension; lack of a landscape’s safeguard from negative externalities of economic activities (cfr. premises of EMAS and “European Landscape Convention”; lack of safeguard of landscape’s value for the community and for the future generations.

        

Background: partners’ realities are joined by problems(see above) and by the issue of landscape safeguard of the historical, artistic, cultural, archaeological and architectonic heritage, in a territorial and landscape context that is characterized for being a "marginal" area; therefore, the safeguard of these sites can only happen within ProgreSdec topic 1 (Policies and instruments for landscape management and sustainable development) and by showing needs of safeguarding and preserving the natural and cultural territory.

 

The territorial context where partners work is classified as rural. This starting definition derives from two characteristics that suggest two problems.The first one defines these areas as “complex”: they are not characterised by one-dimensional criteria, but they find their resources in a combination of different natural and cultural qualities. Moreover, they aim to test themselves as laboratories for new models of relationships between policy and society, for a democratic governance of the territory.

 

However, natural and cultural heritages, which are the resources of the territory, are under risk, threatened by irresponsible models of development. Therefore the areas containing them are considered “endangered”, that strongly suggests the problem of their preservation.

 

1.3 Project structure

 

The sub-project is made of three stages:

 

a)     the reciprocal knowledge of partners, of their territories and landscapes (advantages and disadvantages); aim of this step is to set a driven confrontation of experiences under different points of view (administrative, cultural, naturalistic, economical, etc.); what seems to link the partners is the fact of living in geographically "marginal" areas; the exchange of experiences must make partners become aware of the extreme complexity of the concept of landscape;

b)     building of a shared and, interdisciplinary methodology in order to gain an instrument of landscape evaluation (by laying down a set of indicators: Landscape Evaluation Plan – LEP);

c)      on the basis of LEP, the aim is to build a tool (Cultural Landscape Management Tool – CuLMaT), which is able to translate into practise the set of indicators and apply them to specific and concrete local projects of cultural landscape management.

 

1.4 Specific activities

1.4.1 Meetings (see download area for details)

a) Chiusa Pesio (Provincia di Cuneo, Italy, October 20th and 21st, 2006)

b) Barbarano Romano (Provincia di Viterbo, Italy, March 16th and 17th 2007)

c) Agrigento (Italy, July 12th and 13th 2007)

d) Aetos (Greece, September 6th and 7th 2007)

 

1.4.2 Researches (see download area for details)

a) European Landscape Report

b) Common methodology / Landscape Evaluation Plan (LEP)

c) Cultural Landscape Management Tool (CuLMaT)

 

1.4.3 Local actions (see download area for details)

a) Provincia di Cuneo

b) Parco Regionale Marturanum

c) Provincia Regionale di Agrigento

d) Municipality of Aetos

 

1.5 Aims, Outputs and Results

 

The chosen topic is "Policies and instruments for landscape management and sustainable development" (topic 1). The overall objective is to elaborate an innovative integrated plan for the management of landscape, that can be the outcome of the exchange of different experiences that represent the varied realities from which they emerge.

 

The sub-goals of the project are:

a)     exchange of experiences starting from a specific context, trying to elaborate a common and shared methodology for “reading” the landscape;

b)     elaboration of a landscape management plan, combining the previous methodology to a list of quantitative and qualitative indicators, that are defined ad hoc by the partners (LEP);

c)      transposition of the (LEP) into an operative instrument (CuLMaT) and its application to local project level, concerning specific sites individuated by partners.

The overall aim consists in the transformation of the concept of “marginality” from a limit into a propulsive aspect of the cultural, economical and social development for what concerns the aspect of landscape and of cultural tourism.

Expected results are: pointing out of a methodology to be used also in other contexts; production-publication of the results of the projectile analysis and of materials for a “good landscape management”: increasing the responsibility for the landscape management among public administrators and citizens.

See download area for specific outputs and relative documents