Appendix

THE HIGH WAY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PILOT PROJECT “APE – THE APPENINES, EUROPEAN PARK"
The contribution of the fruition network to the constitution of a regional ecological network

The current national strategies, in the first place those provided by the APE project, have planned the creation of systems highly connected and integrated with the territory through an ecological network where parks and other protected areas play a central role.
The national ecological network is identified as the instrument to pursue actions for the valorisation and development of all those parts of the territories which are characterised by the presence of natural and cultural values in order to preserve the existing levels of biodiversity and the environmental quality in its complex in order to manage the development processes integrated with the environmental peculiarities of the various areas and so initiate a system of policies which will contribute to the formation of a pan-European ecological network.
The role of the High Way in the constitution of an ecological regional network becomes essential if we consider that the itinerary involves the whole region; a region which, besides, is characterised by a percentage of hilly and mountainous territories among the highest in Italy, modelled by the work of Man and currently undergoing a phase of serious decline and neglect.
In these areas it is more than ever necessary to unite the protection and preservation objectives with those of sustainable development, integrating the economical and social policies of the territory involved by the protected areas with a more general territory government policy.
It becomes then necessary to implement the formation of a network to be extended to the natural parks and to all the individual lesser Bodies, valorising the individual identities and gathering the possible synergies around a project of regional initiative which will structure the entire territory.

The High Way multisectorial network – network structure
Man lives in a system of networks where he exchanges matter and energy with the surrounding ecosphere and relationships with other living beings. The anthropization, the fragmentation of the territory and, particularly in the case of Liguria, the progressive abandon of the territory, have heavily conditioned this system of networks..
According to the hypothesis of many scientists and illustrious economists (among these we can mention for example J. Lovelock e H. Daly), Man has hindered this system, highly conditioning it in a negative sense. At the present day the natural capital is the limiting factor of development, but also, paradoxically, also that from which most wealth can be obtained. Italy, and Liguria with it , have an incredible natural capital.

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Thus it appears appropriate to recompose the networks which Man has broken, protecting the environment through the preservation of natural areas (core areas) and the restoration of the environmental quality of the anthropized or fragmented areas.
Whatever idea of a network is to be employed, or the strategic policy to pursue, the restoration of such a network requires a strong integration of the environmental policies referring to the “local systems” as a basis for the implementation of innovative sustainable development strategies.
If on the one hand, thanks to the implementation of law 394/91, "Frame law for the Protected Areas" the impulse to the individuation and institution of new parks has been strengthened, on the other hand a crisis has emerged, which is ascribed to the old idea of preservation and bonds for delimited areas.
This has persuaded most of the people involved in this enterprise of the necessity to promote territory management policies which do not separate the protected areas from the rest of the territory but create fruitful relationships with it.
This is why the High Way of the Ligurian Mountains assumes such a basic role in the formation of a regional ecological network, connecting the knot points of the network (the protected areas), which are in their turn interconnected with areas of lesser naturalistic interest through ecological corridors with alternating buffer and transition areas.
The heterogeneity of the Ligurian territory, which is a “variable geometry space” par excellence, can only lead to an “expansion” of the space of the APE (see “Dossier about the candidature to the II phase APE” at the Parks Office and the Dossier APE of the Ministry of Environmental Affairs) with a regional coordination able to propose an integrated planning involving Parks and Protected Areas with ecological networks in more complex systems (material and immaterial).
The High Way then is an environmental infrastructure which can contribute to the safeguarding of the bio permeability of the various habitats through consolidating actions of the same quality as the existing environment and the defragmentation and mitigation of anthropic pressure of the different natural components in a logic of ecological re-equilibrium and of the requalification of the landscape-environment.
The High Way also constitutes a natural extension of the APE system such as the Great Green Road which connects the Mediterranean bow to the Alpine system and, through it, all Central Europe – Ecological European Network.
The point of strength of the High Way principally concerns the ecological role to play as a winning card in the formation of such system as fruition Network, but not only this, the core areas of which are constituted by the protected areas (Ligurian, Piedmontese, Tuscan, Emilian and French – Mercantour) and numerous SCIs and SPSs all inter-connected along the entire mountainous backbone of Liguria.
Such areas are integrated by a wide belt of natural space and rural territories still rich in natural, landscape and cultural heritage (buffer zones ).
These elements together with the natural corridor formed by the hiking route system of the High Way with others being planned (corridors overstepping stones) form an ENVIRONMENTAL INFRASTRUCTURE characterised by a rich landscape variety in addition to a plurality of local development processes concerning both actions and subjects.
In this way the importance is recognised of individuating not only the natural and cultural resource that the High Way represents in itself, but also the relationship network it is involved with.
Such approach anticipates the inevitable creation of a fruition Network with a strong natural component, interdependent from all the other networks (infrastructural, settlement, fruitive or recreative and of cooperation between various sectorial and territorial subjects) between which there is a relation of complementarity and for which it is necessary to create profitable synergic relationships.

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The network is not a closed system, limited to the issues concerning the mere preservation of natural resources, but AN OPEN AND COMPLEX SYSTEM with interventions and mutual exchanges between settlement, infrastructural and socio-economic dynamics. Such complexity favours subsidiarity between the various levels of government, favouring and promoting synergistic and complementary actions to be implemented in a large unitary system.
Closed system – open system: a closed system is doomed to exhaust its energy.
So, forming a network means to shift from the consideration of a sum of separated elements to the interrelation between them; it means to shift to a system logic obligating abandonment of the traditional classification cognitive level to be able to grasp the connections between the various disciplines and the various elements exploring the phenomena in their mutual influences.
The interventions for local preservation and valorisation (KNOT POLICIES) must be adequately connected to local area projects (NETWORK POLICIES).


In this context the High Way, as a hiking route of national importance, preserved by a special regional law (L.R. 5/93 and subsequent amendments and additions) which, besides, safeguards also the rich network of linking paths, represents a landscape structure and infrastructure (GREENWAY), naturally vocated to the maintenance and restoration of the connections between the various elements of the NETWORK.
The projects of “greenways” normally concern routes which are practicable on foot, on horseback or by bike, to be covered at a slow pace and the High Way, for its intrinsic qualities, its geographical position and the regional valorisation project with the provision of an ecomuseum system and an ecological regional network has sufficient credentials to represent the connecting corridor par excellence and candidate to become one of the most effective regional projects for the touristic valorisation of the inland areas of the Northern Apennines and the Southern Alps and to reduce the fragmentation of the natural environments, thus restoring connections between the urban areas of the low and mid valleys and the coast and agro-ecosystems or, more generically, with the surrounding countryside.