The aim of the project is to increase the respect of the environment and sustainable development base on the awareness of the hills’ history. The objective is to involve children and families that live in the interest municipalities in the knowledge of their Medieval history. Thanks to an exhibition, school and landscape activities we would like to explain people how rich is our territory and why everybody need to be involved in their protection.

9 municipalities in north-east of Italy, in the area of Asolo hills and Monte Grappa south slope

The north-east of Italy in the last 70-60 years has been industrialised very quickly and without a shared territorial plan. Communities have enriched without considering the environment and its own history. The land was considered only an everlasting wealth to use or better to exploit. Now, the economy get slower and some people think that we have to come back to the wild industrialization. Conversely to this opinion, we think that we have to encourage a different approach base on a sustainable stile of life. The societal challenge that we would like to win is to give an environmental and historical education to young generation and create the awareness of the area. Thanks to this approach, citizens will be more open to search new solutions for the economy like the increase of tourism.

Caused by today’s fast-paced lifestyle, population is crumbled and the villages became just dormitory. The project would like to make again the feeling of community and the best way to do it is to create a sense of belonging to a place. The first target group that we would like to reach are the student of the secondary school. In detail, we will complete the history ordinary school program with the presentation of the origins of the community occurred in the Middle age. To achieve this objective, we involve experts that study the history of the area and the evolution of the landscape in the last 1000 years. The contents developed will integrate the school program in subsequent school years and the topics will be exposed in public exhibitions and in a the web site of IPA.

Few are the historical information about castles and fortress attested at Asolo hills and Monte Grappa south slope. Little are also the archaeological evidences and only a book is dedicated to the origin of these Medieval villages. The first step of the project is to do an archive research about these area which include the period from 10th to 14th centuries. In parallel we continue the study of the landscape evolution from the past until today. The data collected will be used to make educational sheets for children and to write posters for a traveling exhibition. Thanks to a research already did by IPA, that identified low flow roads itineraries, we will organised guided tours between residential zone and historical sites. Tours will involve schools, communities and tourists.

This project lasts one year, after that we will expect that a significant part of population (students, families and local citizens) will be able to recognize the historical value of the area. Teachers will be fully formed and, thanks to the educational sheets, they will be encouraged to add the new contents to the Medieval school programs. The new sustainable itineraries will be also particularly useful for the touristic development of the area. Contents of the research will be accessible to everybody in the web site of IPA and also in the posters which will be donate to municipalities. But the most important expected result is the awareness of the existence of a doable economic model based on the development of landscape instead of wild industrialization.

How to protect a territory if you do not know it? The hills area was organised in small communities during the Middle age and every communities was governed by lords who lived in the castles. The small villages, today organised in the 9 municipalities, take often their name from the Medieval fortress or lords. The training of citizens will start from the history of their small communities. The connection between citizens and territorial identity will increase the perception of the ancient structures, environment and the necessity of a new style of life. Citizens will be made to feel responsible in the battle for the preservation of environment and history. The future generation, including the future administrators, will have the means to take conscious decisions about the future.

All promoters of this project are involved actively in the development of this territory, this is why we well know the importance of the origin of our culture and communities. Furthermore, we progressively see how new generations of citizens do not understand the urgent necessity to connect people and territory. In the past everybody knows the inhabitants of small villages, now people do not know also the neighbour. The idea of community is disappearing. To protect environment, history and community is the best chance that we can give to the citizens of this territory.

Archive research 15.000e
Environmental research 2.000e
Implementation educational sheets dedicated to the history of environment of the territory 10.000e
Production and printing of 15.000 thematic maps 5.000e
Implementation of the data in the IPA web site 2.000e
School activities and guided itinerary 8.500e
Graphic materials for the exhibition 2.500e
Itinerary exhibition set-up 3.000e
Marketing and public relations 4.000e
Staff coasts 4.000e
Office expenses 1.000e
Total: 72.000e

We are interested to know if other teams propose different solution to the problem of restart economy in small communities. And we would like to start a discussion about the feeling between communities and environment.