News from the Italian Parks

The four territorial meetings organized by the Gran Sasso and Laga National Park within the Life "Praterie" project, and especially regarding the participatory process for the shared development of a framework regulation for the grazing activity have been successful. The meetings took place last week in four strategical points of the protected area: Barisciano, Arsita, Assergi and Valle Castellana. Their aim was to help the farmers and the local subjects to take part in the important decision-making stage through which the Park intends to reach, by 2017, the establishment of a framework regulation for the grazing activity that the municipalities can adopt after a necessary testing stage, and that the Park authority itself can acknowledge. The peculiarity and the substantial innovation of the process is the collective and, therefore, shared drafting of the regulation model.

The participatory meetings witnessed the increasing participation of more than one hundred farmers and their representatives, as well as mayors and spokespersons of local governments, local health systems, State Forestry Corps that wanted to take part in a very awaited and significant decision-making moment. All the subjects involved hope this moment to improve the conservation status of the habitats, which is the "Praterie" project's main goal, and the management of the farming activities as well.
The meetings, during which a great wish to participate was expressed, could re-establish a sense of collaboration and mutual confidence, in order to realize the objective of developing definite rules regarding the assignment of the pastures, the amount of livestocks, the transhumance limits, the safeguard of the inhabitants' rights, the fulfillment of the water needs, the prevention of the trespassing, the maintenance and the watching of the pastures and much more.

According to the data resulted during the workshop to launch the participatory process held in Camarda on the 30th of November 2013 - that is according to the themes proposed by the farmers themselves, namely the main users of both grasslands and pastures - the University of L'Aquila, in charge of the scientific validation, drew up a report of the emerged issues. This report was furthermore discussed and divided into key points by the territorial desks. At the same time the Park Authority presented the answers to the introductory questions asked by the participants to the workshop, and then other desks enriched the set of proposals reflecting on the question: "What should the framework regulation include?"

In the next future, the University of Perugia, in charge of the legal validation of the participatory process, according to what emerged during the negotiations, will start to place its contents in the regulation scheme which guided the works of the desks. The results will be the subject of a second phase of collective work, this time starting from the question: "what is missing in the framework regulation for the grazing activity?"