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.

Mountain Tourism and Climate Change: What Are the Future Prospects? – In the collective imagination, when one speaks of a mountain tourist destination, the reference is typically to iconic places, especially associated with the winter season and the so-called “settimana bianca” (winter holiday week). Places like Courmayeur or Cortina d’Ampezzo have represented, and have been portrayed in films as well, a constant presence in the world of mountain tourism. The first major setback occurred with the Covid-19 pandemic in recent years, which changed the concept of travel and mobility as we had known it. In particular, the halt to national and international connections caused not only economic damage across the entire tourism sector but, more importantly, created a widespread fear of being together in crowded and enclosed spaces. This led people to rethink and reprogram their lives and their mobility habits, triggering - once it became possible to leave their places of residence - a timid yet urgent desire to be outdoors, to walk in the woods, visit beaches, and explore city centers where they could satisfy the longing that had built up over nearly two years of complete travel lockdown. This shift resulted in an exponential increase in visits to nearby locations at the provincial and regional levels, leading to a renewed appreciation for neighboring areas, as well as small villages and mountain towns. These places, in turn, had to adapt to welcome an increasing number of unexpected and unanticipated tourists. Adding to this scenario is climate change, which is severely challenging the operators of mountain facilities and accommodations. The seasons no longer follow their natural rhythm, and instead, we are witnessing increasingly unpredictable and violent weather events. This article will explore how certain mountain locations are confronting these emergencies and what changes they are likely to undergo in terms of tourism in the near future.

Climate change as an opportunity for a new “habitability” of the mountains: the Orobic massif system. – Rising temperatures in many cities are altering their habitability, leading to the return of urban populations to the countryside and generating new opportunities for mountain areas. To trigger a new habitability of these areas, it is necessary to have a more correct geo-historical and territorial reading of them. Geo-historical and territorial interpretation based on the systemic culture of massive and the reticularity between different valleys. The Orobic Massif is an exemplary case of such dynamics and leads to the development of a change of perspective, bringing to light the material and intangible heritage still widely diffused and contrasting its valley disarticulation. To guarantee the habitability of the mountain it is also necessary to activate co-designing actions that transform the inhabit-ants into stakeholders in the role of planners and evaluators. The contri-bution presents the first results emerging from the research conducted by the authors within the framework of the PRIN 2022: “Governance for mountain reticularity: co-design and activation of a “contratto d’abitare” for the territorial regeneration of the Seriana Valley”.

Living in Valbrevenna Today: Urban-Mountain Dynamics within the Greater Genoa. – The concept of “metropolitan mountain”, which has recently gained significant traction in academic discussions, encourages the reflection on the relationship between center and periphery, aiming to transcend traditional oppositions between metropolitan and mountain areas. Moving away from the city, the territorial processes reveal increasingly distinct dynamics that may offer valuable insights into the potential of these mountainous regions within the metropolitan context. In this article, the municipality of Valbrevenna (in the Metropolitan City of Genoa) is studied to explore the territorial re-configurations of cotemporary lives, moving beyond dichotomous perspectives to embrace a nuanced view of the social, economic, and demographic complexities that define this territory. Based on the results of extensive qual-itative field research, this study offers contextualized reflections aimed at stimulating further discussion on the specific configurations of a “metropolitan mountain” within the Genoa area also for what concerns the challenges offered by the climate changes.

The management of water resources in mountain contexts in ecological transition. – The frequency and concatenation of environmental and climatic phenomena requires a reflection on our way of managing the change, and in this direction the principle of “custody of the high lands” enhances the awareness of the communities on ecosystem services related to the precious water resources, essential to the biodiversity and the basis of stable economies for the mountain. The contribution intends to build a critical framework on interventions oriented to stem the water crises, adopted in the most vulnerable national mountain areas but which at-tempt the difficult territorial transition path on the climate tendency scenarios. The strategies will be analyzed, promoted by regional legislation and innovative regulations, for the territorialization of the actions on the management of the resource, but also complex projects and multi-sectoral studies with direct repercussions on physical and cultural landscapes, which therefore lead to inclusive forms of governance and participate.

Paesaggi transumanti: a variable geometry approach to interpreting the relational flows of nomadic transhumant pastoralism in Friuli Venezia Giulia Region. – For centuries, a particular type of entrepreneur has been traversing the countryside of Friuli Venezia Giulia, climbing up the valleys and reaching the mountain pastures: they are the nomadic transhumant shepherds. The shepherds do not only make a vertical oscillatory journey that connects the mountains to the plains, but move with perpetual horizontal motion, which sees the herds make daily movements covering an area that affects the green spaces of almost the entire territory of the region, including protected areas, bringing out management and relational conflicts that deserve to be investigated. Despite urbanization, infrastructure and industrialization, transhumant pastoralism continues to exist and stands as an interesting example - complex and full of ambiguity - of resilience and sustaina-bility. “Paesaggi transumanti” is a research project that integrates disciplines of geography, ethnography and contemporary art. The article pre-sents a mapping updated to 2023 of transhumant shepherds in Friuli Ve-nezia Giulia and a proposal for the interpretation of the regional landscape according to their specific point of view.

Transhumance paths in the Tuscan Maremma: community and territorial development. – The practice of transhumance in Tuscany, now reinterpreted beyond its pastoral context, serves as an opportunity for territorial development. The CamBio Via project in Tuscany, for instance, aims to enhance transhumance routes by integrating cultural Heritage and landscape. The decline of transhumance is correlated to socio-economic changes and the abandonment of rural areas, however, projects like CamBio Via seek to preserve and promote this tradition by fostering sus-tainable routes and providing training for shepherds. Transhumance, alt-hough declining, continues to play a crucial role in the relationship be-tween rural life and mountain environments, contributing to biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource management. The tourist
valorisation of transhumance routes, as emphasized by initiatives like the Cammini, represents an opportunity to preserve and transmit this ancient rural practice. This overall purpose can be achieved also through means such as short films and documentaries able to narrate its history and current challenges.

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.

Potential Impacts of NRRP Investments in Italian Mono-functional or Desertified Realities: Threats and Opportunities. – The contribution aims to reflect on the impact of PNRR plans and programs with particular attention to the sustainability of rural and mountain tourist regions, highlighting territorial criticalities and suggesting greater emphasis on the concept of adaptation and the possible role for activities related to education for the territory. The PNRR provides for a € 6.68 billion loan in the “tourism and culture” sector, which will make it possible to develop innovative actions to implement local development through the new ecological transition criterion. Much emphasis is placed on the digital transition and physical measures of renewal. Many realities of those compatible with these funds fall within rural and mountain areas, often characterized by negative situations up to conditions of real demographic and economic desertification. The poor economic and social sustainability of many peripheral and mono-functional territories, investigated by recent studies in the field, seems to link the transformation of these areas to actions of economic adaptation and diversification linked to climate change, with respect to which climate maps suggest an increase of the impacts in the coming decades. An investment in these areas, perhaps aimed at restoring or physical-functional de-velopment actions, runs the risk of producing little benefits if it is not accompanied by new forms of social, economic and even demographic attractiveness. The systemic vision can make it possible to operate in a more suitable way to the specific local territorial system, while the development of educational paths to the territory open to stakeholders active in the field can increase the possibility of investment success through the sharing and production of open local knowledge to the reproduction and renewal of territorial values as a project for the future of the subjects who live there and who work there.

The Afghan Wars: Between Economic-Cultural effects and Similarities in the Eura-sian Geopolitical Scenario. – The peculiar geomorphological configuration, characterized by imposing mountain ranges and desert areas, makes Af-ghanistan a difficult-to-access territory. Autochthonous peoples (different ethnic groups united by the war against “the foreigner” that also promoted the Taliban affirmation) widely exploited such a scenario suitable for guerrillas based on sudden attacks, difficulty accessing heavy weapons, and re-sistance to air attacks. The ability to counter invasions has been confirmed in the pushback of great powers, like Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America, which previously financed the mujahideen against Russian occupation. This management problem translates into the unexpectedly long democratization campaign of Afghanistan led by the Americans, which ended on August 15, 2021. The Enduring Freedom program, which envisaged the Western agreement of seventy nations for the implementation of a democratically stable situation and lasting in Afghan territory, proved a failure in the coexistence of the Americans in the cities and the Taliban in the valleys and mountainous areas. The withdrawal of American troops generated a sudden change in the international geopolit-ical scenario and, consequently, the Middle East balance. Through a brief historical overview of the conflicts that gripped Afghanistan, this work aims to provide a picture of the geopolitical, economic and cultural effects that have influenced the precarious balance of the Middle Eastern area of the world system.

The Protection and the Development of Mountain Areas in the Perspective of the Italian National Plan of Recovery and Resilience. – In Italy, implementing the cohesion and territorial development strategies displayed by the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience (PNRR) is complex because of its increasing socio-economic divides. In particular, the mountain areas – traditionally left on the margins of the national development strategies – ask for careful consideration. The traumatic experience of the pandemic, the lockdowns and the ecological transition challenge have awakened the political and media attention to these vital but fragile territories that produce natural resources and ecosystem services for the benefit of the whole community. The contribution discusses whether the NRRP contains adequate invest-ment indications and priority of intervention for the protection, long-term development and functional integration of mountain areas with the rest of the national territory. Concerning the methodology, the paper develops a qualitative analysis of the evaluation reports on the NRRP published by some leading mountain associations (UNCEM, ASVIS, INU, CAIRE) and the communication of a specific NRRP call (call “Villages” on Action 2.1 Village Attractiveness) employed to communicate and promote some calls.

Mountains, cities inland areas in Italy: a challenge for a public policies. – From the analysis of the national project about "inland areas" started by Fabrizio Barca in 2012, ex minister of the Territorial Cohesion, we will want to know the importance of the different meaning of the terms "inland areas" and "mountains" because very frequently we flatten the differences between the two. It is not only two reality that not coincide geographically, are also two concept really different.

The first part of this article will be dedicated to define this characters and their relevance for cohesion policies. The second part will consider the relations of interdependence of the cities with their hinterland mountains as a possible subject of political relations based on a reciprocity artificial ecosystem.