Nature is culture and the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list must take this into account
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Every year, in spring and autumn, thousands of animals move slowly along paths that are always the same, under the guidance of groups of shepherds, together with their dogs and horses. As in an uninterrupted cycle, shared rituals and social practices are rhythmically conducted from the plains to the mountains and vice versa, first forwards and then backwards, shaping the relationships between people, animals and ecosystems. Transhumant shepherds know the environment and its balances, since their farming method is sustainable and efficient: with their skills they look after the livestock and contribute to the correct management of the territories and to keeping biodiversity high.
In 2003, the general conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – better known as UNESCO – adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, ratified by Italy in 2007. Thirty-one years after the establishment of the famous list of sites of exceptional cultural or natural importance, UNESCO has in fact decided to recognise, protect and promote intangible assets, such as oral expressions, the performing arts, social practices, rituals and festivals, traditional crafts. But also the knowledge and practices on nature and the universe such as transhumance.
Following the 17th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, held in Rabat between the end of November and the beginning of December last year, the elements of the Intangible Cultural Heritage have risen to 677 and involve as many as 140 countries around the world. In Morocco, UNESCO has in fact decided to include 48 new intangible assets of humanity in the list – 5 of which need urgent safeguarding – including the art of cooking the French baguette, an Algerian folk song, the tradition of beekeeping Slovenian, a Japanese ritual dance called Furyu-odori and also harissa, a typical Tunisian sauce made with fresh red pepper, garlic and olive oil.
With the acknowledgment of the tradition of breeding Lipizzan horses, the number of Italian elements inscribed in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage has risen to 16 and Tocatì is added to them, a shared program for the safeguarding of traditional games and sports, which was registered in the register of UNESCO Safeguarding Good Practices. Certainly it is not a record like the one that our country holds for the largest number of sites included in the list of world heritage sites (58 officially recognized ones, just two more than China, of which 53 for cultural reasons and 5 as natural monuments), but it is an important milestone, bearing in mind that the United Nations declares that intangible assets represent human diversity and creativity in the face of globalization and their understanding helps intercultural dialogue and encourages mutual respect of different ways to live.
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In a country where there is a historic dichotomy between humanism and science, which has deep origins and which has never been completely overcome by the school system and which has its roots in the thought of Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile, it nevertheless makes us reflect that as many as 10 elements of the intangible heritage national belong to the domain of “knowledge of nature”, often in “cohabitation” with other domains. These are sometimes multi-millennial practices, whose origins date back to times when knowing nature was the distinction between surviving or succumbing to it and which UNESCO identifies as one of the 5 manifestations – or “domains” – of the intangible cultural heritage, on a par with oral expressions, performing arts, ritual events and traditional crafts.
Think of falconry, the art of hunting with the sole aid of birds of prey, without weapons, often erroneously associated with historical re-enactments, circus shows or collecting animals. Born in the Asian steppes over 4000 years ago and then migrated westwards with the Persians and Arabs over the centuries, it reached Europe in the Middle Ages above all thanks to Frederick II of Swabia, Stupor mundi, a profound admirer of Arab culture. The Mongolian tribes, who had coexisted with steppe eagles, golden eagles, sacred falcons and gyrfalcons for millennia, could not go unnoticed by the extraordinary ability of birds of prey in capturing hares, foxes, ungulates and pheasants, unequaled by nomadic hunters on horseback, armed of bow and arrow only. So then the knowledge of the behavior of birds of prey, of the reproductive periods to understand how and when to take them from the nests, of the techniques to tame them and release them after the hunting season, became the cultural baggage of entire peoples extended throughout Eurasia: a baggage genuinely naturalistic that guaranteed falconers and their relatives plenty of protein in the diet.
In much more recent times – starting from the 16th century – the ability to identify “tone wood”, that with straight grain, without twists and regular growth rings, in still standing spruce trees was and still is a essential competence of Cremona luthier know-how, another element of the UNESCO intangible heritage. It is known that Antonio Stradivari personally went to Trentino, to the forests of Val di Fiemme, to observe, choose and buy the fir trees that his naturalistic culture suggested possessed unique characteristics for the soundboard of his violins. A culture not limited to the simple visual perception of wood, but extended to forestry science in the broadest sense of the term, including the study of the best times in which to cut trees, which tradition then identified around the winter solstice, or the length of seasoning of the wood, not less than 5 years. The mastery in the workshop, unequaled in the world today, took care of the rest.
Some of the UNESCO assets relating to the knowledge and practices of nature include millenary management and use practices of the landscape that are not only still current, but recognized by the major international institutions and agencies for environmental protection – FAO, UNEP, IUCN – as fundamental in terms of of adaptation to the effects of global warming, such as hydrogeological instability and fires. This is the case of the aforementioned Transhumance, the form of itinerant pastoralism through which the cattle are led seasonally towards the best pastures depending on the altitude. A millenary practice that plays an essential role in the prevention of fire risk, since the herds and flocks reduce the flammable biomass at the edge of the forests, where it is easier to start a fire.
It is the oldest Intangible Cultural Heritage, according to some scholars dating back to the early Neolithic and perpetuated along migration routes that have remained unchanged for millennia. In fact, transhumant shepherds possess a real naturalistic culture to guarantee the best forage for the livestock, which is part of botany and includes pedology, climatology and detailed geographical skills on territories that in some cases range over 1000 km. To date, transhumance is considered one of the most sustainable and efficient farming methods, capable of enhancing areas subject to abandonment and contributing to the maintenance of high levels of biodiversity, preventing the disappearance of open areas and the fauna and flora associated with them.
Similarly to transhumance, the art of dry stone walls and the resulting terraced landscape, common to all Mediterranean cultures and beyond, represents a fundamental practice that minimizes soil erosion, maximizes water retention of soils in the summer , allows agricultural control in areas where agriculture would not be practicable and creates an environmental mosaic which interrupts the continuity of flammable vegetation, also in this case reducing the risk of devastating fires. But isn’t it also one of the landscape elements that contribute to making the Cinque Terre unique in the world and that have made possible their recognition as a World Heritage Site?
A particular mixture of intangible elements also exists on the island of Pantelleria, where the terraces with dry stone walls are partly cultivated with the traditional and unique method of the sapling vine, historically widespread in the Mediterranean, but which has survived only on the island daughter of the wind , as the Arabic etymology of the same states. And it is precisely the wind that has induced the people of Pantelleria to maintain this form of viticulture, in which the vine – of Zibibbo grapes – is kept prostrate, like a low bush, sheltered inside small basins of the land which contribute to further increasing the soil retention of low rainfall. The links between the elements of the Intangible Cultural Heritage do not end here, since the Passito di Pantelleria, a product of the Pantelleria sapling, is in turn a PCI. In general, wine is, which together with olive oil, cereals, fresh or dried fruit and vegetables, a moderate amount of fish, dairy products and meat, and many condiments and spices makes up the Mediterranean diet according to the definition by UNESCO. The culture of the Mediterranean diet is inextricably linked to the very concept of biodiversity and sustainability, being characterized by an infinite variety of products adapted over the centuries to the particular environmental and climatic conditions of each region of the Mediterranean basin and involves the use of natural resources (soil, water) less intensive than a food model based on the consumption of meat and animal fats.
Transhumance, falconry, dry stone walls, saplings, Mediterranean diet, violin making, but also truffle hunting, mountaineering and traditional methods of horse breeding: they are an Italian cultural heritage that humanity has decided to safeguard for future generations, in the awareness that in these practices lies the secret for the protection of our country’s biodiversity. But if naturalistic skills have created cultural excellence, if knowing how to manage nature in a sustainable way means giving life to a cultural heritage, perhaps nature and culture must be combined and integrated, overcoming the subordination that the natural and experimental sciences live towards human Sciences. If nature is culture, is knowing how to distinguish a pine from a fir really less cultural than the same ability applied to Mozart and Beethoven?
Alessio Martinoli, expert in natural resource management and Filippo Zibordi faunist, Istituto Oikos
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