The CAI towards the Congress, Santolini:“New rules for protection and enhancement”

The Congress (25 and 26 November in Rome), together with its construction process, represents an opportunity for broad internal and external discussion, in which the CAI intends to strengthen its civil commitment for the protection and valorisation of the mountains

ROME – 'It is necessary for everyone, from those who frequent mountain areas to political decision-makers, to develop the awareness that today we play a fundamental role in playing a field that has changed characteristics and dimensions;Instead we persist in 'playing' with the old rules when we need new rules for the new conditions. CAI members must be the first to know how to play in this field by acquiring the new rules, because the environment has changed. Ecosystem services must represent the renewed paradigm for managing these rules, necessary for a sustainable activity capable of enhancing the mountain economy.Use a metaphor Riccardo Santolini, associate professor at the University of Urbino (where he teaches Ecology, Environmental Teaching and Sustainability and Teaching of Natural Sciences), to summarize, in an interview published on the Cai online newspaper 'The Scarpone', the intent and objectives of the 101st CAI National Congress, entitled 'The mountains in the era of climate change', of which he is the scientific coordinator.

Congress (25 and 26 November in Rome), together with its construction process, it represents an opportunity for broad internal and external discussion, in which the CAI intends to strengthen its civil commitment to the protection and valorization of the mountains.The scientific reasoning underlying the work has as its constitutional foundations article 9 ('The Republic promotes the development of culture and scientific and technical research.It protects the landscape and the historical and artistic heritage of the nation.It protects the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems, also in the interests of future generations.State law regulates the ways and forms of animal protection) and article 41 ("Private economic initiative is free.It cannot take place in conflict with social utility or in such a way as to cause damage to health, the environment, safety, freedom or human dignity.The law determines the appropriate programs and controls so that public and private economic activity can be directed and coordinated for social and environmental purposes).

Without forgetting paragraph 2 of article 44 ("The law provides measures in favor of mountain areas"), the so-called 'Comma Gortani', from the name of Michele Gortani, geologist, constituent and senator who was responsible for the insertion of the paragraph in 1947, when he was central councilor of the CAI. 'The connection to the Constitution represents one of the fundamental aspects of the Congress.The novelty represented by the inclusion of the protection of the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems among the fundamental principles of the Constitutional Charter, dating back to last year, must be entrusted to appropriate public policies, but equally it becomes a fundamental right from a development perspective sustainable - explains Santolini - The CAI as an association and its members as citizens must take charge of these new opportunities, aiming at these paradigms through their behavior of safeguarding and using the mountain resource. The discussion that will be brought to the congress will have as its objective the identification of a path on which to set behaviors for the protection of a collective good. We will have to be the 'soldiers' of this collective good, which offers benefits to everyone.

What is the true weight, still not fully understood, of ecosystem services?'We find ourselves - Santolini replies - having to be aware of the important functions of the mountain, that is, of those benefits, direct or indirect, that it produces for each of us and for the entire national territory. These functions represent not only an ecological but also an economic value, which must be recognized in the mountain territories and in the activities that maintain their functions and value.Gortani already had the second paragraph of article 44 inserted into the Constitution and, in 1952 as senator, he approved the first law for the mountains and laid the foundations for the one on the hydroelectric surcharge of 1953, the first real payment for ecosystem services ante litteram relating to mountain development works that are not under the jurisdiction of the State.The foresight of the natural geologist Gortani now materializes with the possibility of concretely evaluating natural capital and its functions, which become services in relation to anthropic demand, thus becoming a public good.The ability of ecosystems to fix carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, retain soil, purify water, etc.characterize that work of nature that today we can also evaluate economically, thus determining the basis for a true ecological-economic balance, in which to identify, in a defined territorial unit, who produces services, the activities that maintain them and who consumes and alters them.Moreover, numerous laws, including regional ones, already point in this direction and therefore the CAI, aware of this, can place itself as an incisive intermediate social function of stimulus and proposal between expert knowledge and local contextual resources, thus contributing to regenerating responsible commitment and shared civil culture and favoring those actions that guarantee benefits for the community in mountain areas.

Should the Alps and Apennines, united as mountains, be distinct with regards to anthropological and natural aspects? 'Diversity - Santolini says again in the interview with 'Lo Scarpone' - must be an asset, not an element of separation, we have seen and experienced it in more than one situation.This diversity is typical of our country, in fact we are a unique nation in the world for biogeographical, anthropological and ecological characteristics, and the biodiversity that our mountain expresses must be a fantastic richness:we go from Mont Blanc to the mountainous territories of the island of Pantelleria, further south of Tunisia.This diversity must unite rather than divide.The centuries-old attitude to the mountain paradigm - understood as a vocation to the Alpine ideal - allows the CAI to be, and be perceived, as a solid producer of meaning and an authentic operator of trust.Therefore, in the awareness of a concrete ecological and economic paradigm shift, we must activate those opportunities for connection, physical, ecological and social, which makes the Italian mountains a splendid reality that develops in the middle of the Mediterranean.It is true that the Alps are different from the Apennines, but it is precisely this that offers us the possibility of promoting different approaches to the mountain and its different ecology, to be used and developed in different forms, but with the same criteria for valorising ecosystems and territorial realities'.

Environmental, social and economic sustainability:What type of future-oriented vision do the conference proceedings intend to propose?'A future-oriented vision that is inclusive and non-exclusive.We are faced with a new ecological-economic paradigm, a situation in which the mountain becomes a resource for the community.Cai members, but not only, must be aware of being custodians of an asset that is not only aesthetic and landscape or of a recreational-sports nature, but of an objective value linked to the weight of the resources that the mountain territories can offer. When I say 'resources', I am talking about natural capital, which must be preserved as it is 'lent' by future generations. We are therefore faced with a commitment that we must make in our behavior and in the ways we deal with the limits of the mountains.All in the knowledge that the places we love so much are a great resource for the entire population.The CAI can have this awareness before others and can therefore play the role of sentinel of these resources, acting as an example in their sustainable and innovative management, as a hinge between the top-down national strategies and the bottom-up innovation of the communities.The CAI, which knows how to represent passion, can also 'represent' a vision.I am thinking, for example, of the sustainable management models of refuges, of the educational messages underlying the various projects and initiatives, of the trail network that promotes slow and interested tourism.All this to educate people in a new approach to the resources and knowledge that mountain areas offer us, and on which we all depend' concludes Santolini.