VIDEO | So the medieval rule returns to help save the climate

As a protection tool, the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines National Park enlists 'civic uses'.Conference in Cerreto Laghi

REGGIO EMILIA – An ancient legal institution that has its roots in the past, updated to overcome the environmental challenges of the future. He believes it the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines National Park that to “civic uses” (called in the regions of Italy with various names such as “quadri”, “regole”, “comunaglie” and “patriziati”) and dedicated a conference yesterday to their valorisation in Cerreto Laghi, attended by around seventy administrators and interested citizens. The origins of civic uses date back to medieval times, when many lands were managed and used together by entire communities.Over time, properties have often been divided between private individuals, but the rights to use and access the natural resources present –such as woods for the collection of wood and mushrooms, pastures and streams– remained in the hands of the so-called “collective domains”, which manage common goods. And the National Park has bet on their potential to promote environmental conservation and adaptation to climate change - an extremely topical topic today - focusing on traditional agricultural practices foreseen by civic uses, which limit the excessive exploitation of resources.

The collaboration between the institution and some of these "shared" properties has already materialized in the sustainability credits project, which sees its heart precisely in the virtuous management of the territories by civic uses, which leads to the generation of services ecosystemic (firewood, but also water lamination, protection of biodiversity and improvement of hydrogeological risk) in turn sold to companies that intend to offset their CO2 emissions.

As explained by introducing the works from director of the Giuseppe Vignali National Park the body then recently launched an agreement in which "with the role of coordination" it involved 43 civic uses that exist in its territory in coordinated and shared environmental activities.Furthermore, explains Vignali, "16 of these have already taken a step forward and started selling ecosystem services".A 2017 law brought order to the legislation regarding civic uses (the 1927 law that wanted to abolish them failed and instead strengthened them). Explaining it to the audience was Giorgio Pagliari, former senator of Parma and jurist who managed to "bring it home", thus regulating for the first time these realities considered "existing" and which could only be acknowledged without modifying them in any way.First of all, explains Pagliari, “civic uses were granted the status of legal personality under private law, which sanctioned their complete autonomy in the management of collective assets, which previously were in many cases exploited by Municipalities as if they were public goods“.Secondly, the law established which assets civic uses have power over (woods, streams and even marble quarries), introducing a new type of "private" property, in the sense that, Pagliari continues, "these are assets that belong to all members of a community and to no one in particular, therefore they cannot be alienated, divided and distorted of their function".

Article 9 of the 2017 law, his putative father always says, “establishes the consecration of collective domains in the function of environmental protection”. And finally "there is the obligation for the generation that manages the assets to improve them, not destroy them and preserve them for those who come later".

According to Pagliari however, “the law has given the tools, but what is needed is active and proactive management of civic uses for the development of territories“.Also for Annalisa Folloni, mayor of Flattiera (in Lunigiana) and president of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines Park Community, "the fundamental aspect of civic uses is their ability to conserve resources", while for Raffaella Mariani, vice-president of the Park and mayor of a municipality in Garfagnana, "they are very current institutions and it seems very interesting to me that their over one hundred year history is expressed in the debate on the questioning of common goods, in terms of the development of territories and communities".

Annibale Salsa, anthropologist and president of the scientific committee of the school for the governance of the territory and landscape of Trento, underlines how civic uses, in addition to being able to counteract the depopulation of the mountains, are bearers of “a moral and environmental ethic” because they "promote a certain model of social relations".From a landscape point of view, adds Salsa, "the bottom-up protection of everyone's good in a participatory way is the true fundamental concept of sustainability".

Present at the meeting were, among others, Alessandro Zampolini, president of the civic use of Cerreto;Elio Ivo Sassi, president of the Mountain Union of the Reggio Emilia Apennines and delegate of the Province of Reggio Emilia and the mayor of the Municipality of Fivizzano, in Tuscany, Gianluca Giannetti.The atmosphere of the meeting heated up towards the end when the "host", the mayor of the Municipality of Ventasso, Enrico Ferretti, presented an opinion from the Region according to which the Municipalities can represent civic uses, where no one does .A fact defined "ex lege" by the speakers' table, which invited the regional body to adapt to the new regulations.

Concluding the work, the president of the National Park, Fausto Giovannelli, returned to talking about sustainability credits, finally underlining again the “responsibility” of civic uses in the management of territories.