Workshop On The Spot at Tosco-Emiliano Apennine National Park, Italy
Representatives of the National Park, Regional Administration and relevant stakeholders gathered at the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine to discuss the actions to be taken within the Action Plan and face the needs present in this territory.
As part of the CEETO Project’s phase 2 development, on July the 12th and the 13th 2018, the first two “Workshops On The Spot” were held within the Pilot Areas of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine National Park.
The workshop was attended by representatives of the National Park (president, director, and two technicians), the Emilia Romagna Region (Protected Areas Service, Forests and Mountain Development), Lead Partner of the project and by several stakeholders like: the mayor of Corniglio, Councilor for Mobility of Castelnovo né Monti, representatives of the Ente di Bonifica, CAI (Italian Alpine Mountain Organization), local mountain guides, environmental guides for hiking, managers of mountain shops, hotels, local mountain lodge and chairlifts, social cooperatives and Forestry Carabinieri.
Workshop On The Spot - Photo by Emilia Romagna Region
The works were directed by Dr. Giacomo Munegato, of Agenda 21 Consulting, appointed by Federparchi to lead the participatory process that precedes (and accompanies) the Pilot Actions themselves, in order to make them as responsive as possible to the needs of the territory and local communities.
The two meetings (the first ina Castelnovo nei Monti (RE) and the second in Lagdei (PR), were opened by Francesca Moretti’s (of the National Park), presentation to depict the areas of the chosen pilot actions and the relative criticalities related to the tourist flows (intended both as quantity, type and visitors behaviour). Subsequently, the stakeholders were involved in a simulation, aimed at isolating the peculiar characteristics (natural and social), which they would like to maintain and, on the contrary, the usages and the incorrect policies that they would like to forget or significantly revise.
Tosco Emiliano National Park's President - Photo by Emilia Romagna Region
These arguments formed the basis for the subsequent discussion among the stakeholders, in which ideas emerged, more or less broad, trying to focus on those for which the context and the "scale of work" of the CEETO project, it can lay the foundations for a management change able to produce not only effects but also management methods able to produce beneficial and lasting effects over time.
The shared idea emerged in the workshops, for the development of the pilot actions, was to start from the monitoring not only qualitative but quantitative of the flows of cars and people, to move to a profiling of tourists and hikers (and to their “awareness raising”), in order to allow to develop, in the medium and long term, adequate tourism management and supply policies, more in line with the changing needs of tourism flows and their sustainable development.
