Abstract
The paper deals with the issue of responsible and sustainable tourism starting from a series of Italian (and only partially French) cases of ecomuseums of pastoralism and transhumance as potential drivers for development and territorial regeneration, as well as for the promotion of experiential tourism with low environmental impact, capable of triggering participatory processes of inclusion and social innovation. Through the analysis of two Italian regions (Piedmont and Molise) and three cases (Ecomuseum of Pastoralism in Pontebernardo, Cuneo; Ecomuseum Itinerari Frentani, Larino; and the ongoing program of the Institutional Contract of Development in Campodipietra, Molise) the authors propose an interpretative model based on three main issues: the awareness, agenda, and action of a responsustainable tourism concept and on the three different subjects of local actors, tourists and policy-makers, obtaining as the main result the pre-eminence of intangible actions for development over environmental recovery and conservation activities.
Highlights
The first territorial area taken into consideration was that located in the extreme north of the country, in the Alpine area of Piedmont (Figure 1), where we observed the performative capacity as well as the territorial and community shaping of the ecomuseum of pastoralism in Pontebernardo (EPP) in the Municipality of Pietraporzio, located in the Province of Cuneo, and characterized by historic mountain sheep tracks between the valley and the mountain pastures and an ancient horizontal transhumance—the Routo—between the mountain areas of the Alps and the plains of southern France corresponding to La Crau, presently the headquarters of the Maison de la Transhumance [71,72]
The case of the explicitly self-defined ‘Ecomuseum Itinerari Frentaini’ (EIF) is, with respect to the analysis model applied, only partially completed, since a still small number of territorial actors participated in it, but above all because it appears to lack the necessary involvement of local, intermediate, and regional institutions capable of transforming the experience of the founders of the same in a true model of territorial regeneration based on experiential tourism
We have accurately considered the positive reception and the attempt to introduce in the rather narrow mallets of the very centralized CIS design of a “plan of intangible actions” proposed by the local university, which essentially aims to compensate the project for this weakness with cultural and tourist promotion as well as participatory activities of biocultural landscape regeneration, aimed at creating an almost regional ecomuseum itinerary based on sheep tracks network and transhumance practices
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Urban consumers are increasingly interested in short supply-chains and high quality organic local foods, and in the storytelling concerning these products as embedded in the respective territories They are fascinated as well by the possibility of being in touch with the very source of their food and commodities (where and how a particular agrifood product has been cultivated and processed; how and who has realized a specific handcraft as an added value). Ecomuseums can be today a powerful tool of interpretation and “mise en forme” (formatting) for landscape and cultural, offered through a strong interactive process with local communities [24] They activate different museological representations and trans-disciplinary competences, public/private entity interactions, and the new innovative building of a tourist destination between a local dimension and the “global hierarchies of value” [25]. We explored the issue of transhumant pastoralist routes as an ecomuseum opportunity in the context of rural tourism
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