Chapter 19

Innovative Practices and Strategic Planning on Terraced Landscapes with a View to Building New Alpine Communities

Federica Corrado and Erwin Durbiano

Abstract Most terraced landscapes are found in so-called fragile areas that today are reconstructing their territorial identity and redefining new forms of territoriality. The transformation that territories are undergoing in general stems, first and foremost, from a new approach to their own resources with a view to building innovative paths to development. Starting from the importance of territorial practices in these fragile areas, as terraced landscapes, the contribution deals with the potentiality of these resources in the building of a specific place awareness. Exercising an awareness of place means supporting processes and policies designed to strengthen the interpretational capacity of a territory and its development. Place awareness, built in this way on short local networks, comes into contact with long networks and hybridises and adjusts in line with modern life and its changes. The case study proposed supports these reflections. It regards the experience of Alto Canavese territory in Piedmont Region (Italy). It is an interesting case study because the terraces, along with other features of the territory, were the basis upon which a heritage framework was reconstructed which could provide a new horizon of meaning for the territory and the sharing of a common heritage that could bring people together.

19.1Focusing on Practices

Most terraced landscapes are found in so-called fragile areas that today are reconstructing their territorial identity and redefining new forms of territoriality. The transformation that territories are undergoing in general stems, first and fore-

The Sects. 19.1, 19.2 and 19.3.3 are written by Federica Corrado; the Sects. 19.3.1 and 19.3.2 are written by Erwin Durbiano.

F. Corrado (&) E. Durbiano Polytechic of Turin, Turin, Italy e-mail: federica.corrado@polito.it

M. Varotto et al. (eds.), World Terraced Landscapes: History, Environment, Quality of Life, Environmental History 9, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96815-5_19

most, from a new approach to their own resources with a view to building innovative paths to development. Terraces are therefore playing a leading role in this renaissance of rural territories that is being shaped, above all, by current practices (Bevan and Conolly 2013; Varotto and Bonardi 2016).

Once recognised and valued as a resource, we can understand how terraces can support and foster these regenerating processes by focusing on practices. A narrative that explains such practices highlights the visible and invisible relationships that are bound together and characterise the modern landscape, and relationships that give voice to the players that “make territories” (Decandia 2011).

Practices currently represent that action of “making” that tries out new or innovative solutions in order to overcome the crisis that has hit territories and traditional development models. In other words, know-how, local wisdom, historic heritage and, generally speaking, the tangible and intangible potential of places are being reviewed through initiatives, projects and economic, cultural, social and environmental actions. The aim is to encourage the emergence of new ways of appropriating space and new rules for using territories (Decandia 2011), the narrative of a system of practices that “produce identity and meaning thanks to an interactive process of learning” (Pasqui 2008: 59) in order to identify different development models as an alternative to traditional ones. Such models involve taking care of the territory, an activity that “is based on a creative model for growth that focuses on a green economy that features economic, social and territorial collaboration in order to achieve a new short-to-medium-term paradigm of development designed to reduce the consumption of natural resources and control environmental risks, promoting greater energy efficiency, a drastic cut in local pollution, social inclusion and liveability” (Bobbio and Brunetta 2014: 207).

If we look at the recent 2016 “Choosing the Future” Third World Meeting on Terraced Landscapes, it is obvious that the fields of application where local development practices are being implemented in these territories focus on three themes:

–new forms of agriculture as seen in “back to the earth” projects and/or new farm management methods that attempt to try innovative forms of primary sector development;

–new forms of tourism that experiment with alternative development models based on an exchange between visitors and residents that promotes local history and identity through an experiential stay that also involves visitors in the daily work that takes place on terraced land;

–new cultures that combine tradition and innovation, where terraces become places for cultural production. Slow landscapes that, in contrast to the fast pace of urban life, inspire artistic innovation.

Rural territories are providing experimental solutions to these issues, with all the limits that an experiment can have and the difficulties that it can involve. Nevertheless, these practices attribute value to the cultural roots of places, introducing innovation. Such experimentation draws on expert knowledge that

sometimes hails from outside and brings with it new ideas, creating new solutions and opportunities thanks to a process of cultural hybridisation with local knowledge. In this particular case, this involves the restoration of many terraced areas that become part of real economic programmes and development projects, even taking their cue from individual life stories (Lodatti 2012).

We therefore find ourselves confronted by a level of experimentation with practices that debunks two paradigms. The first concerns the concept that innovation and experimentation cannot occur in scarcely populated areas characterised by a certain level of social dispersion. As Remotti states (2011), the idea that innovation is something that only belongs to the urban world where there is a greater concentration of networks, opportunities, etc. is called into question, making room for a form of innovation that finds its chance to emerge in just such areas of social dispersion and in the preservation of a natural environment from exploitation. The second paradigm concerns the fact that old and new residents of these fragile rural territories (particularly in mountainous regions) become “problem solvers” (Euromontana 2004), i.e. acting as players who possess the ability to find new solutions when faced with present difficulties.

19.2Terraces: A Resource for Building Community Awareness in the Alps

In 1972, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation produced the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the World Heritage Convention) where knowledge and tangible and intangible elements of culture all over the world are recognised as universal heritage in order to safeguard their social, cultural, symbolic and economic values. This convention has been reviewed over the years and expanded, first in 2003 and then in 2005, with two other conventions: the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

The 2003 convention, in particular, includes intangible heritage—such as traditional knowledge regarding things, places, the environment and nature—as elements that should be protected. Indeed, intangible cultural heritage is understood to mean “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage”. The convention states that intangible heritage is transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.