Collective land tenures: socio-ecological infrastructures in the mountain territories of l’Aquila, Italy. – This study examines collective land tenures as socio-ecological infrastructures articulating multi-scalar relationships among local communities, rural commons, and mountain governance. Despite extensive dismantling and erasure during the twentieth century, these institutions persist as self-governed systems supported by statutes and assembly-based practices. Drawing on qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews and walking as a research method in the mountain territories of L’Aquila, the research shows how collective land tenures continue to sustain ecological stewardship yet struggle to reproduce civic participation and territorial habitability due to depopulation and the erosion of cultural transmission. Recognizing them as socio-ecological infrastructures highlights their potential for civic regeneration, ecological care, and shared decision-making, offering self-organized responses to contemporary political and socio-ecological challenges in mountain areas.

Rethinking the places of life and work: the inner areas facing the challenges of syndemics. – After a ten years long debate on the SNAI and the goal of demographic in-version to be pursued with a «reversal of the gaze», or «bringing the margins to the center», we can talk about the controversial process generated by this objective, still ongoing: centering the strategy on a spatial practice (living) has led to a concentration of scientific and policy responsibilities on territorial planning which, while certainly crucial, works if the project is equipped in advance with a strong analysis of the places. This is the basis of the thought on inner areas that must be strengthened so that these places can be freed from intellectual subalternity. In fact, the theory and practice of planning also need to recover a good description of the territory, that ability to interpret the complexity of the relationships between natural space and human action, which is the work of the geographer. The paper aims to reflect on the need to re-think the descriptive investigation as a prerequisite for good planning, due to the urgencies issued by climate change and the pandemic shock, phenomena which, closely connected to each other, have shown how unpredictable and diversified they can be territorial responses to external stresses. The complementarity between description and planning, i.e. the alliance between geographers and architects, will be adopted as a guiding category to be able to read the depopulation of internal areas not as a merely housing issue but, rather, in a holistic vision, as the effect of the limits of a production system based on unsustainable territorial hierarchies.

Nature-based solutions and the Erasmus+ program: a combination that can generate socio-environmental value in inner areas. – In areas subject to depopulation, although this trend risks hindering climate adaptation efforts, it also opens up opportunities for renaturalization and ecosystem improvement projects. This article explores the role of nature-based solutions (NbS) in in-land areas, highlighting their potential to promote environmental aware-ness and community involvement. Through a case study on Bergolo (CN), we aim to provide an initial analysis highlighting how the community garden located here can create and renew the social fabric, specifically thanks to the role of the Erasmus+ program. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, this work aims to be a starting point for highlighting how such initiatives increase local awareness of socio-environmental issues and strengthen community ties at both the local and European levels.

The rediscovery of transhumance routes in the Matese area of Campania. Paths and economic chains. – The Matese mountain complex is part of the southern Apennines chain and currently divides the Campania and Molise regions. Inhabited since the pre-Roman age by Samnite people, throughout history it has represented a place of transit between the Campania plain and the Adriatic side. With the establishment and regulation of the Regi Trat-turi in the Aragonese era, part of the ancient walkways that crossed the Matese were used by the shepherds of the Campania side to connect with the main Pescasseroli-Candela sheep track that surrounds the mountain complex in the Molise part. Until the 18th century, sheep breeding and the production of woolen cloths represented among the most important items for the economy of the territories located on the Campania side of Matese. Centers such as Piedimonte d'Alife (today Piedimonte Matese), Cerreto Sannita, Cusano and Morcone based their economic well-being on these activities for a long time, so much so that they are considered among the most active centers of the ancient Kingdom. The purpose of this study is the rediscovery of this network of paths and of the ancient connected economic chains as a fundamental prerequisite for a development proposal for the area, which is currently experiencing a period of profound economic stagnation with consequent depopulation. The methodology used refers to the analysis of historical documentary and cartographic sources and the GIS will be used for the identification and tracing of these paths.

New mountain people, new activities, and new forms of transhumance: adapting traditional patterns in val Aupa, Friuli Venezia Giulia. – The study is part of the broader topic of the transition to modernity, and the passage to post-modernity, in the rural and mountain peripheries of the Eastern Alps. A passage, which took place starting from the mid-1900s, which often means a catastrophic impact on society and territories, in particular of certain areas, such as some valleys of Friuli, which involves the well-known phenomena of crisis and depopulation, to the point of creating situations of real human desertification, and the abandonment of entire valleys. It is therefore a question of understanding how the premises can be created for such re-conversions, and for the acceptation of changes, to take place without trauma, to create situations in which modernist and post-modernist innovation (today connected with globalization, and with the various digital transitions, ecological and of various kinds) can be usefully combined to avoid dramatic ruptures. It is the question, first, of rural economies, of agriculture and livestock, possibly connected to transhumance, in its various expressions, to be repurposed and adapted in appropriate way.

Migrants, abandonment and reuse of historical centers. The case of Riace in Calabria. – Italy, a migratory crossroads between Europe, Africa and Asia, has always been affected by migratory movements that have affected its regions in different ways. In recent decades, they have assumed a synergistic demo-graphic dimension between population and depopulation, which modifies the structure and composition of the population, mitigating the unstop-pable demographic decline along with the depopulation of historic cen-ters. This is possible through urban redevelopment and socio-economic revitalization paths linked to the reception of migrants. The contribution analyzes possible causes and effects of migratory processes on the Cala-brian population, using the Riace case study as a model in which the “wel-come path” has had positive results and revitalized the historical center with the return of residents and the construction of a society with high values of cultural pluralism.

Abandonment, doubling, musealization: A Geography of the Grecanic Area from the 18^th century to today. – The Grecanic Area occupies the most remote strip of the Ionian coast in Calabria. Since the beginning of the contemporary age, it has undergone a deep and steady process of depopulation which has led the original villages to different destinies. In this article, we investigate the case of Pentedattilo, a small village which after a permanent abandonment is now moving along a path of musealization, and two cases of “doubling”: Bova-Bova Marina and Africo-Africo Nuovo. While the first case concerns two villages still extant and playing a significant role for the entire area, the latter is a case in which the ancient village has disappeared. These three cases give us a spectrum of types within which we can include most other villages in the area. Specific focuses are then dedicated to the development of communication routes; to the main aspect of the Area’s identity, the Greko language; and to its most prestigious economic production, the bergamot.