Anna Marson /Università IUAV Venezia anna.marson@iuav.it Rules and policies for terraced landscapes: evidences from some cases
A premise, about Rules and Policies T. Lowi (1972) identifies four types of policies: - distributive, - redistributive, - regulatory, - constituent This classification is still used in policy analysis, although the latter is today interpreted as «governance», and so the first thing to point out is that Rules are just one specific kind of policy about the cases considered Although initiatives to keep terraced landscapes alive are many, and widespread along the world, it is not easy to find in literature proper case-studies, dealing in depth with the diverse policies applied or developed in the different contexts. Therefore this reflexion of mine is just a draft, with the hope to complete it in the future At the same time a good deal of information which can be found is interesting (among many others, I would quote some materials about the French Parc des Cevennes, the Suisse Domleschg project, the Landscape Observatory of Trento) and with some experience on policy analysis and landscape policy design help me to deal with it.
- distributive policies They are usually the most easy, and less conflictual; contribution alone, to restore a terrace or something alike, usually does not produce a lasting effect, nor a replication effect - redistributive policies More conflictual than distributive policies, but also easier to last along time Not many examples applied to terraced landscapes, although they might be interesting; for instance, since terraces are hydrogeological devices, other landowner benefitting from them might be asked to pay a small tax, like it is usual for drainage services This policy might redistribute even the terraces, since the municipalities might entrust the derelict ones to people caring for them, taking them away from the absent owners - regulatory policies Usually highly conflictual, if we go beyond Guidelines towards prescriptive rules, and we do not associate them to distributive or redistributive policies. - constituent (governance) policies Setting up special institutions, like here in Trento the Landscape Observatory/STEP, but also building new collective actors, creating arenas able to bring forward plus than zero sum games together with and for the community
In practice, everything is of course more messy, but successful policies are usually made by a sensible combination of different resources (distributive or redistributive, regulatory, constituent or governance). Generally speaking a restriction (like a rule about how to restore terraces) is more easily accepted if combined with some kind of benefit (financial, but also of other nature), and will have an easier implementation if a collective institution (in the wider term) shares it Of course financing matters: The Suisse landscape Fond has 5.000.000 Sfr. a year for non-repayable incentives In Italy, we have some public (Fondo paesaggio Trentino), private (FAI), or private-public (Distretto culturale Valtellinese) financing (but no EU or National landscape policy ) What does not work at all is having on the same territory both rules and incentives, but unrelated one to the other (like landscape rules and agriculture payments directed to terraces, but without any «if, then» ratio And in many cases we find ourselves to work without financial resources; in such cases we are usually looking for discovering or even creating new resources: - new labelling and traceability for terraces products - new cognitive frames for people dealing for different purposes with terraces (from Mayors to people working in Forestry services; from local experts to school students; from inhabitants to tourists) - walking groups, artistic performers, voluntary groups etc., guaranteeing at least a minimal maintenance of terraces, slowing down their ruin
By the way, dealing about frames Often we speak about conflicts among different functions, for terraces (like economic functions vs cultural heritage), but are we sure that those are not (at least sometimes) conflict about cognitive representations? For instance: dry stone terraces can be seen as a limitation to agricultural practice (the standard one) or as a resource for context-specific agricultural practices, less subject to concurrence than other agriculture productions For instance: spontaneous vegetation growing on terraces can be seen as a positive trend (by forestry service and by some ecologist) or as a very negative one, because it threatens terraces In some regions of Italy (like Liguria) the permit to cut vegetation on terraces is easy to obtain, in others (like Piedmont) much more difficult therefore, the work of ITLA has a great importance in framing or reframing the way we look at terraced landscapes as an issue
Derelict terraces: issues to be dealt with for bringing them a new life Existing rules, new rules (preservation vs pragmatic approach open to new techniques, materials and dimensions/shapes, bridging codified and local knowledge (s) Labelling terraces rural production (restricting it to terraces: demand for new less expensive terraces?) Payments tuned to multi-functionality (agriculture but also hydrogeological equilibrium: the need to overcome sectoral organisation and evaluation of policies and related payments) Redistributing costs and benefits (activities which benefit from the landscape quality, like tourism, but also other forms of local production, should contribute to its maintenance) Policy communities (enlarging the terraced landscape policy community, and keeping it wide enough but also sharing values and moving together towards collective objectives ) All the issues mentioned so far recall the need of an appropriate mix of regulative policies, distributive and redistributive policies, constituent policies. Looking at specific cases through this lens can help up to build the appropriate mix, able to bring new life into terraced landscape without destroying them by dereliction or by mono-functional success