Welcome address
Annalisa Calcagno Maniglio
ICCOPS (I)
Abstract
The today session, jointly convened by the Associations
GISIG (GIS international Group) and ICCOPS (International Centre for Coastal
and Policy Studies - Landscape Natural and Cultural Heritage Observatory), pursues
some specific objectives.
The first one is to inform the Authorities, the practitioners and the researchers,
from diverse European and Mediterranean regions, about the initiatives, running
and planned, in our town and in our Region. Some of these initiatives were announced
in 1998, proclaimed as "International Year of the Ocean" by the United
Nations, on the occasion of the International Conference convened by ICCOPS
on the theme of "Education and Training in Integrated Coastal Management".
That Conference aimed mainly at triggering and spreading out initiatives and
action approaches for the integrated management and sustainable development
of coastal areas, for the protection of the marine environment and of its biological
resources: all of those initiatives in line with the political addresses adopted
in 1992 by the Rio UNCED Conference.
This Conference of the ECO-IMAGINE project aims at presenting and analysing,
through its development and thanks the contributions of the speakers, what has
been done, according to the undertaken commitment, of the started projects and
plans as well as what has been scheduled and is still in the phase of implementation
to pursue the fundamental objective of sustainable planning and management of
the coast and of its urban centres.
In collaboration with the Administration, they will be shown, together with
the main characters and the most important problems of the Ligurian coastal
area, some of the works carried out for the re-qualification and feeding of
some beaches. The important and meaningful works to re-qualify the urban waterfront
will be shown as well, some of which have requested a long and careful planning,
with the recent conclusion in the current year 2004, when Genova is European
capital of culture.
However, a second important objective is to expose to the practitioners and researchers attendant the Conference some of the methods and tools used in the planning of the coast and in the sustainable management of its resources and to offer in the same time a knowledge of the systems to access and use Geo-Information.
During the Conference a further consideration will
be developed, which, grounded on the guidelines of the European Landscape Convention
ratified by Italy in the last October, singles out the study and the working
ways most suitable to incorporate the "landscape dimension" in the
urban planning regulations, in the programmes to realise the infrastructures,
in the policies for coastal planning and agricultural change, in general in
the development of settlements, of infrastructures, of tourism resorts, of industry.
This consideration refers -as far as the change and the management of the territory
is concerned- to the knowledge methods most proper to individuate the quality
and to identify the assets of the landscape, intended as a "synthesis of
nature and culture" and aims at pointing out the need of a specific "landscape
focus", in order to outline working proposals addressing an active safeguard,
a long-lasting and dynamic management, a sustainable -in ways and procedures-
plan and design of the landscape, able also to prospect future developments.
Considering the increasing uniformity of new territorial impacts that make poorer
the ecological richness and the aesthetic quality of landscape and start a progressive
loss of identity of the different places, is more and more important to address
some important objectives: to incorporate the new human impact on the territory
on the basis of the individuated potentiality or otherwise paying great attention
to the specific weaknesses and to the possible disturbances that can arise -due
to the direct or indirect impact of the proposed actions- on the character,
on the quality, on the identity and finally on the value of the landscape.
All the Mediterranean coastal landscapes have a common problem: they have suffered
in the last decades a wear and tear process much greater than the other parts
of the territory.
The demographic growth and the economic development have concentrated on the
coast diverse activities, often conflicting: industry, tourism, specialised
agriculture, urbanisation, transport.
All these phenomena are well known and call for concerted actions, towards a
coastal planning able to match the need of development with the safeguard of
natural resources and of landscape, as well as with the numerous economic, social,
cultural and ecological problems to which one makes general reference as "quality
of life of people".
It must be added that the maritime component widens the range of possible uses
of the coastal area when compared to the terrestrial one: some allocations that
could be also found elsewhere find additional advantages by the littoral, adding
then to the uses that are peculiar of the coastal areas such as maritime transport
and beach tourism.
Such a wide and heavy exploitation together with the large range of advantages
offered by the coastal areas gives particular prominence to the rare and limited
character of littoral resources.