Il valore ecologico e culturale delle proprietà collettive nell'Appennino centrale. Un approccio storico

The author proposes a historical analysis of common goods in reference to the territories of the Apennines of Central Italy. In particular, their economic and social value is emphasized as means of subsistence for local populations and as systems for regulating natural resources. Their use always proceeds together with their protection and conservation, in a collective and community key. Despite the continuous attacks suffered over the centuries by this particular form of land management, the communities and agrarian universities have managed to resist any attempt to cancel. In this way, together with other practices such as seasonal migrations and different forms of peasant pluri-activity, in a key of income integration, they have allowed the mountain communities of the inland areas of the Apennine chain to survive and to preserve, at least until the twentieth century, a substantial demographic balance. Inalong-term perspective, from the Middle Ages to the present day, the depopulation of these territories can be considered a recent phenomenon. Facing the current crisis of the industrial world and economic models focused on the idea of a continuous growth characterized by unlimited consumption and considering the environmental emergency, the rediscovery of common goods, which have always been alternative to capitalism, presents itself as a completely new perspective, with a strong ecological character.

Il saggio propone una ricostruzione storica del tema dei beni comuni (comunanze agrarie), in riferimento alla dorsale appenninica umbro-marchigiana. Le vicende riguardanti gli assetti delle proprietà collettive della dorsale appenninica dell'Italia centrale si snodano dal basso medioevo fino alla contemporaneità e sono poste in relazione alle diverse leggi varate tra Otto e Novecento. In modo particolare, si insiste sul valore ecologico dei beni comuni e sulla loro importanza per gli equilibri ambientali e sociali delle comunità locali.