In our country of scarce liberalism it does not often happen that private philanthropists decide to donate their land properties of high environmental value, or that they agree to protect them by formally committing themselves to their defense with environmental movements or associations, unless they themselves propose to to do it. Instead, it happened again recently at the AIW, when the Mrs. Leila Nur (Pavia), turned to the Wilderness Association offering to protect under its aegis a guarantor a property of 45 hectares of abandoned woods and arable land located astride the Municipalities of Serole (Asti) e Pezzolo Uzzone Valley (Cuneo) in the heart of the high Langhe, at the foot of their highest altitude (Bric Puschera, 845 m), in the Uzzone Valley, a side of the Val Bormida di Cortemilia.
A new example of which the AIW is now the flag bearer in Italy, given that there are already 9 landowners of natural environments who have signed "Spontaneous Protection Contracts" for their properties, allowing the designation of well 10 sectors of Wilderness Areas for a total of 314 hectares scattered in five Regions: Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Campania, Piedmont, Abruzzo.
In a country (such as Italy) where the conservation of nature is rarely such, but only imposed with bonds of authority, absolutely democratic according to the liberal spirit, these gestures deserve to be praised and even honored; almost a slap in the face of politics that has always only known how to impose Parks and Reserves where, rather than the defense of Nature, tourism is promoted in every form, including those harmful to Nature itself, and development projects for the same purpose; when not creating expensive and bureaucratic management apparatuses that almost always turn into “armchair factories”.
The Lady Leila Nur, even before knowing the AIW he had already bought the property by his own will with the aim of preserving the woods and using the cultivable part of an environmentally friendly agriculture, where not only pesticides and other chemicals were not used, but also where to practice traditional agriculture, where the quantity of products was not so important as their quality; inspired to do this by a fraternal friendly relationship with a farmer and writer from Varese, to whom this environmental protection initiative has now been dedicated: Fabio Pedretti. It was he, who for his passion in organic agriculture not aimed at profit made her discover the books and ideas of the Japanese peasant-philosopher, Masanobu Fukuoka, preacher of agriculture of "do not", that is natural permaculture, without plows, harrows, fertilizers. And it always was Fabio Pedretti who, due to her viticultural interests, having identified an environment to be protected in the Serole area, prompted the owner to buy it to preserve it and to make it a kind of laboratory of ancient agricultural biology.
The new Wilderness area, called Scau Sutan, will be the first sector of the desirable and broader future Rio Rigosio, to encompass a larger complex of obvious Wilderness value extended along the ravine of the homonymous river. It is bordered on three sides by deep ravines dug into the characteristic gray marl of the Langhe. With the exception of the stretch of access road and a central farmhouse of fine Piedmontese rural architecture and some neighboring modern disused warehouses (which could however be dismantled), it is devoid of any form of urban intrusion that breaks its unity, and is characterized by extensions of former crops in total abandonment and in the course of renaturalization (which the owner would like to use for the arrangement of beehives producing queen bees), as well as the biocoenosis of the forest which, although with evident signs of past coppicing, today it shows few signs of manipulation, and is indeed in an evident state of natural reconversion.
Its forest composition is very interesting, where the presence of the chestnut - a non-native species - is increasingly fading with the recovery and the upper hand of native species, such as the Black Hornbeam, the White Hornbeam, the Ash, the Field Maple, the Wild Cherry, and then Willows, Black Alders, Hazelnuts, Elderberries, Cerri and Roverelle and, above all, large expanses of Gray poplar (populus canescens), certainly the most interesting species in a rather unusual environmental situation (a real biotope of the species), with almost monumental trees of several tens of centimeters in diameter and heights of fifteen or more meters, with specimens also very useful for the nesting of forest bird species (not far away there has already been reported that of the very rare black woodpecker). The only drawback, but of little impact, is the presence here and there of several trees of silver fir (prevalent) and spruce due to unexpected reforestation of a few decades ago.
The new private Wilderness Area, while representing a spontaneous example and a bulwark of naturalistic conservation between two Regions where environmental resources are everywhere seen only as a tourist-financial commodification of Nature, devoid of any moral and spiritual interest in respect for beauty in in itself, today it also presents itself as a message of hope to symbolize the continuation of life: at least a ray of sunshine in this dark moment of emergency coronavirus!
Frank Zunino
Secretary General of the Italian Wilderness Association