La svolta culturale nella valorizzazione dell’appennino italiano. Un caso di studio in provincia de l’Aquila

The Italian Apennines are more and more affected by demographic decrease and marginality (Migliorini e Salvatori, 1990), with a thick presence of very small municipalities (with less than 1,500 inhabitants) that show scarce vitality and dynamism, allowing just a mere survival of their population (Migliorini, 1982). During the last part of the 20th century, the mountains have become a precious source of resources for lower areas and the plains, and their traditional activities have disappeared or been put aside as a consequence of the lack of labour force, human and economic resources. After a short analysis of the marginal conditions of the Italian Apennines, the paper will deal with the new consumerism trends, among which tourism, identifying possible future scenarios to overcome marginality. Young people’s trend to abandon the mountains and refuse their origins, that has characterized the second half of the past century, has produced in several mountain areas a sort of economic and typological colonialism of the new productive activities (Bernardi, Orienti, 1989), quite often not in harmony with the local milieu. In other places, however, the spatial isolation has allowed culture, tradition and landscape to be protected. In these last cases, it is possible to identify a way out of marginality, allowing not a mere survival but real development, focusing on the cultural and tourist promotion of places, in search of intense experiences connected to the natural environment, culture and a rural/pastoral past widely disappeared under the pressure of modernization and urbanization. The case study will focus on the central Apennines, in Abruzzo, namely the part of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park in the province of L’Aquila. This area was quite densely populated up to the second half of the 20th century, when the process of abandonment started, leaving the traditional activities and the villages neglected, and causing the worsening of its condition of marginality. The high value of its cultural and natural landscape, together with its intangible heritage and the inclusion in a national park, however, may play a vital role in helping the local population and the tourists re-discover the traditions and the value of the places. This tourist promotion already focuses on the presence of historical traces of transhumance, cultural heritage and a natural environment widely intact, but it could be improved offering new experiences and more participation of the local population, while increasing the vitality of the territory.