Inland areas, small villages, territories on the fringes of metropolitan orbits, that trespass into remote and wild areas, are some of the marginal territories that are increasingly at the centre of policies and actions for territorial enhancement. From European programmes to local planning measures, territories at the margins are being discovered as treasure troves of heritage and sedimented identities, for the potential they hold in terms of development, protection and sustainability. _x000D_
Remote areas are not always extensive and circumscribed, more often they are folds and indentations in the fabric of territory, places that open up just beyond the boundaries of urbanised and infrastructured regions. Pockets that have remained particularly untouched, but also forgotten, impoverished, that intersperse lines, slow rhythms, become gateways to other dimensions of interaction with the environment. _x000D_
Many attempts at change, especially in rural, mid-mountain areas, have been trying to design new scenarios of bottom-up habitability, valorisation and use of marginalized territories. _x000D_
High Ossola, in the north of Piedmont, participatory initiatives are moving from the inland valleys to the borders, leaning towards the implementation of territorial systems and networks. Between the Vigezzo and Isorno Valleys, the Cravariola Valley, is the focus of a recent project proposal for the valorisation of a circuit of historical trails, connecting Italy and the High Maggia Valley in Switzerland. In the wake of the routes travelled by the ‘Spalloni’, the smugglers, new paths are being traced not only physically, but conceptually, of a systemic vision of dialogue and enhancement between these territories. Re-opening these lines, re-emerging the valley’s identity and resources certainly means working in the direction of tourism, but even before, it means supporting a networked model of synergic valorisation as a necessary condition for long-term sustainable territorial development.
Menzardi Paola, Cerutti Stefania, Benetti Stefania
Università del Piemonte Orientale – Dipartimento per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile e la Transizione Ecologica
ID Abstract: 375