SOCIAL ECOLOGY AND TRADITIONAL LANDSCAPE ENHANCEMENT. Some issues from a case study in the Gorizia Karst

Governance approaches combined with sustainable planning and territory and landscape management tools have progressively increased the link to the environment concept from an ecological-naturalistic point of view, leading to a wider and well-structured vision of the future. This idea moves close to sustainable development principles in a potential integration scenario that takes into consideration economic growth, environmental safeguarding and sharing choices. It becomes extremely important to act for landscape management and enhancement, especially referred to traditional and marginal areas ones, using social ecology practices able to recover/preserve the fundamental ecosystem services, such as biodiversity, supported by active population involvement methods. In particular, the Gorizia Karst presents itself as a sensitive area where, during the 20th century, deep wounds have been inflicted. The WWI devastation, the post-1945 border (well-known as "Iron Curtain"), the Cold War and the consequent wide military servitude activated on it, have significantly modified the landscape under the morph-functional profile. The dry karstic grassland, known as “landa carsica” (Natura2000: Habitat Code 62A0), are phytocenoses made up of an extraordinary multitude of species, whose origins are connected with millennial farming practices linked to transhumance. These features make this landscape an extraordinary area whose ecological values are at least equal to the historical-testimonial ones. Most of the past enhancement efforts failed because they were not based on a clear identification of the relationship between different territory elements. In this sense, the case study analyzes the effects of “sustainable grazing” reintroduction, started in the last three years on about 700 hectares of dry karstic grassland, as an example of social ecology practice. Territory and landscape planning, local heritage sustainable promotion paths come out to be essential tools to achieve a participate planning of traditional landscapes, able to highlight even the eco-system services value of these special environments in an integrated and long term sustainability dimension.