© picture by Youtheclub.eu

Today, as old practices are less transmitted from generation to generation, the number of craftsmen is decreasing and puts the conservation of local patrimony into difficulty. To preserve it from disappearing, young people have to get involved in crafts to promote traditional practices – also to younger generations – and to boost the local economy.

On the Amalfi Coast, this is relevant in form of terraces, the terraced landscape and the maintainance and protection of all its eno-gastronomic and agricultural traditions. 

The GREENER’s e-pill interviews

“The GREENERs” Erasmus+ project is designed to facilitate the pro-active participation and engagement of young people in environmental protection and policies. Through our Green E-Pills interviews, we specifically highlight the incredible initiatives undertaken by youth, aligning with the project’s goal of fostering peer education and inspiring organizations to embrace digital resilience.

Visit https://www.thegreeners.dantillesetdailleurs.org/resources/e-pills/ to watch the expert interviews and find out more about the project!

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The project E-Youth Patrimony

© picture by Youtheclub.eu

With the idea of supporting young craftspeople, the project “E-Youth Patrimony” has been created by our Greek partner Solidarity Tracks with the support of a group of international partners (under those also Acarbio from Italy) and published on Youtheclub. This project has economic, social and cultural importance. It brings together international young people to exchange practices and experiences concerning young crafters, helping them to get integrated in the professional market.

© picture by Youtheclub.eu

The project has 3 main ideas:

• Establishment and follow-up of a strategic cooperation plan to support young crafters and to integrate them into professional life.
• Exchanging good practices in youth work between partners.
• Cooperate in shared projects of common interest that meet the needs of young people & communities through: Volunteering/ exchanges/ training/ youth initiatives/ professional internships and more.

Read more about that project and look at the beautiful crafts on the following link: https://youtheclub.eu/index.php/e-youth-patrimony/

Séraphine-Noëlle Reeg * studying Tourism and Sustainability at the University of Montpellier, France

In the last years we have assisted at the constant escalation of the flow of tourism on Amalfi Coast. The historical road 163, that connects the towns of Amalfi Coast, from Vietri sul Mare to Positano  – considered among the ten most beautiful roads in the world – badly supports such an amount of traffic in both directions.

Particularly penalizing is the increase of arrivals by Grand Tourism Buses. In the high season period, between March and October, is daily recorded the presence of several hundreds of this kind of vehicule. They are the main cause of the heavy obstruction of the Public Road 163 Amalfi Coast.

The security of residents and visiting citizens is continuously compromised by this traffic. Every day along more than 40 km of curves and turns, the flow of many touristic buses of huge dimension transit, without planning, that in determined points of the route, makes impossible circulation, even for pedestrians. Allways more frequent are problems of public order related to the massive presence of groups travelling by bus. The only emergency exit remains the Public Road 163. It is impossible to create the right circumstances to guarantee first aid in case of accident or simply guarantee entrance to school or office at a fixed time. It is necessary to remember the many chronicles related to lives that have been lost by some bus in transit or by conditions of danger caused by them. A situation that is growing worse every day and has already seriously compromised the quality of life on the Amalfi Coast. The historical road 163 is characterized, apart from the striking sights on the magnificent panorama of the coast, by an extreme fragility due to its particular conformation. On the basis of this peculiarity must be preserved.

The Town center of the Amalfi coast are unfit to container such a demographical impact, allready at the limit of sustainibility. Today the practicability of the Public Road 163 is badly regulated by the ordinance 29/2013 of ANAS, the State holding company of the road. It is forbidden for the buses that measure more than m.10,36 in length to transit in both directions. At Easter and on Bank holidays they must not exede m.8. ‘’Eccept for those buses that are already present in exit from Amalfi Coast in direction Positano – Vietri sul mare, in possession of a derogation granted from the town hall that has also released the transport license. This concernes buses,physical or legal persons resident in the town of Amalfi Coast’’.

These derogations, in the years, have grown in number out of control. Therefore, the promoters of this initiative ask to:

• To put an end to the evidenced criticism that integrate the terms to configurate the violation of the current normative in matters of security and civil protection;
• To impose a ‘’Coast Measure’’ to all the means of transport in transit along the Amalfi Coast, disposing m.8  of length for buses, and m.8 for trucks (max 100 q.li) as well as fixing arrivals through a plan that prevides a closed number of authorizations. We ask  that  this criterion be implemented by the beginning of the Tourist Season 2020;
• To stop the exercise of T.P.L (unfixed local transport ) authorized by the Region  and the Province to those societies that do not respect the ANAS qualifications;
• To adopte a Territorial Limited Traffic Area (ZTL) along the whole Amalfi Coast from Vietri sul mare to Positano, equipped with suitable videosurveillance to control the entire area and a Single Portal with High Technological System for the control of gates (Positano, Agerola, Valico di Chiunzi, Vietri sul mare) updated in real time with news on parking availability and traffic conditions. Identify transshipment areas for means of transport unfit to travel on the coast to those that are suitable and respect the permitted length.

This area – UNESCO Human Patrimony – needs a kind of tourism adapted to the respect of the places and their particular morphology; that is not meant to be stressed but to be loved and protected.

THE PROJECT

To map step by step parts of the terraces of the Amalfi Coast. This means collecting GPS data about the presence of terraces, their state, their vegetation and cultivation, and objects related to terraced landscapes: dry stone walls, waterways, cisterns, and others.

THE AIM

To obtain a map, an overview and data about the current state of the terraces of the Amalfi Coast, an idea about the quantity of dry stone walls and their maintainance state, and to understand the state of cultivation and vegetation. This will serve for landscape planning purposes

THE METHOD

Everyone with a smartphone can contribute. Via the app maps.me you sign points, make descriptions and send the data to us. We will insert it in our map on Open Street Map OMS.

The aim of this project is to collect more data about actual state of the terraces and develop a protection strategy. We aim to involve as many people as possible: local authorities, representatives of different organizations of the Amalfi Coast, as well as private individuals who would be interested in contributing to creation of the map. The very special thing about OPEN MAPTER is, that to be a part of it, you don’t need to have nor very specific knowledge neither equipment. What you need is a smartphone with app MAPS.ME, a little free time and good will.
If you are interested in participating, write us a mail at staff@riservabiosferacostiera.org!

BACKGROUND ABOUT TERRACED LANDSCAPES

Terraces are horizontal fields established on steep slopes in order to be able to cultivate them and keep the water in the ground. With their different shapes, uses and made of different materials, terraces are a peculiar element of many European as well as global cultural landscapes. Terracing makes it possible to cultivate areas difficult to reach, but at the same time their maintenance and even cultivation itself requires a great deal of effort.

For this reason, in recent decades we can observe a gradual deterioration of the terraces. Farmers’ desire to reduce costs has led them to use cultivation and reconstruction methods (such as use of chemical fertilizers and cement to rebuild walls) that are threatening the environment and destructing the terraces.

We realize that the terraces, in addition to agricultural value, are a testimony of past times and traditional rural economy. Therefore, from the need to protect this extraordinary type of landscape, ACARBIO together with Amadeo di Marco and Antonia Gravagnuolo has started the project of collaborative mapping of terraces of the Amalfi Coast which will allow us to collect more data about their actual state.

Landscape mapping remains a fundamental tool for land management and planning. Collaborative mapping tools, based on “open” data sharing, can be effectively used for detailed mapping of terraced areas. Furthermore, presence of an extended network simplifies the management of any eventual problems in the use of the collaborative platform, thanks to the technical support they can be easily solved by the users themselves.

The objectives of the course are to provide a preliminary overview of the motivations that lead to the use of Open Street Map (OSM); secondly, it enables to get to know the whole process of making a personalized map; a final goal of a collaborative mapping activity is to create a collaborative thematic map.

In 2011 the Alliance World Association for Terraced Landscape — Italian Section (http://www.paesaggiterrazzati.it/) was formed. From 2018 also ACARBIO is part of the organization. The World Alliance regularly organizes conferences on the topic. The next one will take place on the Canary Islands in 2019 (http://terracedlandscapes2019.es/en/).

ONGOING PROGRESS

NOVEMBER 2018 

The third meeting under the Open MAPTER project took place on Sunday, 18 November 2018. Group of volunteers, using GPS and their smartphones carried out mapping of the terraces of Corsano fraction. They collected detailed information about terraces themselves and infrastructure of the area. Now we are another step closer to reach our aim and create map of terraces of the Amalfi Coast.

Find more information about the event here

SPRING 2018

After the first meeting, during which our experts: Amedeo di Marco and Antonia Gravagnuolo had explained importance of OpenStreetMap system for OPEN MAPTER project, group of volunteers met again in May 2018 to elaborate mapping method that would make whole process as easy as possible and open for everyone. We identified all the elements of the terraced area to be included in future maps, created a classification system and then, we did the first test of the MAPS.ME app, mapping area near close to headquarters of ACARBIO.

In order to create an example of a map with all necessary elements we started mapping the terraces in may 2018. The map on Open Street Maps already created can be found here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/40.69790/14.63310

Interview with our experts, Antonia Gravagnuolo and Amedeo di Marco:

INTRODUCTION. FEBRUARY 2018

First meeting regarding project OPEN MAPTER took place on Saturday, February 10^th 2018. Amedeo di Marco, Amedeo Di Marco, expert in data management in various fields, specifically geographic territorial data and Open Street Map and Antonia Gravagnuolo, researcher of CNR IRISS for the mapping of the elements characterizing terraced cultural landscapes, gave lecture “INTRODUCTION TO OPEN STREET MAP”, during which they talked about the importance of landscape mapping for land management and planning, and the role of collaborative mapping tools based on “open” data sharing in the detailed mapping of terraced areas.  They emphasized how useful tool map of terraces of the Amalfi Coast could be for monitoring their state of preservation and developing a protection strategy in the future.

More information here

“We must first start using local products in hotels and restaurants and then bring people to places to show the landscape as it is”

– The agronomist Rosa Pepe of the Crea of ​​Pontecagnano has been dealing with the characterization of the ancient Re Fiascone tomato for years. We are on the right path, but we can not stop now.

“Our territory has a history, let’s remember to tell it, and we protect the elements that tell this story” – declared Vincenzo Sannino, President of ACARBIO.

Acarbio was born in 2009 with the main purpose of nominating the Amalfi Coast to the UNESCO MAB Reserve, recognition that could bring centrality on important issues concerning the future of the whole area. It deals with the beginning of a sustainable development, which maintains and protects the characteristics of the area.

 

 

 

 

 

“All the associations must form a team, reinforce the idea of ​​coordination and debate on some design choices that could have a heavy impact on the territory up to overturn it” – underlined Maria Rosaria Sannino, President of the UNESCO Club of Amalfi.

A coordination of the associations has been present for a couple of years, but now it will be necessary to formalize it, make it stronger and more cohesive. The same Center of Culture and History of Amalfi also believes in these aspects, and this meeting has been promoted.