The outcome of the research conducted on the regeneration of areas suffering land degradation, anticipated and analyzed by “families” of causes and effects, with a particular focus on the degradation of agricultural territory and the fragmentation of ecosystem services, providing for lines of action commensurate with the degrees of reversibility of the damage. The methods are based on an in-depth activity, carried out over decades of activity and intensified during the research, which can be considered ongoing, of direct observation of the phenomena experienced throughout the territory and facilitated by the aid of aerial photogrammetric survey systems employing drones for this purpose. The research is directly aimed at the quantitative, qualitative and critical understanding of the extent of the phenomena and its incidence in the environmental systems to which the interested areas belong in order to grasp the authentic sense of the questions for the definition and evaluation of the regeneration prospects. There is particular focus on the role of prevention aspects for those areas that are used improperly with consequent loss of quality of the habitats, with evident limitation of the effectiveness of ecosystem services, and to those contexts that express values integrated from a cultural, naturalistic, identity point of view and are subject to risks of fragmentation that endanger ecological connectivity.
3.1.1. Areas of Environmental and Social Degradation Affected by Productive Activities—Extractive, Manufacturing and Industrial—Inactive or Abandoned
Consider the different characteristics of land “waste” which apparently generate less serious consequences in the near and immediate context, not concerning the areas originally equipped to host productive activities and which, after a relatively short life cycle, have simply become inactive and therefore, due to a subsequent profound change in the economic and social fabric to which an inability to adapt and relaunch consistent with the abandoned vocations of the territory.
An emblematic case for the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria is the complex site of Saline Joniche, on the coast of the municipality of Montebello Jonico and articulated in the Liquichimica Biosintesi plant, in an industrial port and in the Great Repairs Workshop of the State Railways, today entirely in disuse.
The two ponds formed near the Liquichimica area due to the natural silting of the port are today a natural oasis used for resting by many migratory birds which, as a natural habitat guarantees the maintenance of biodiversity, a SIC area, whose protection lies not with the local council, but with the Metropolitan City (
Figure 2).
This, like other production sites, now abandoned, do not have, officially, risks of contamination but would still require, in most cases, a priority reclamation of polluting substances and materials such as asbestos, which is still present as a building material.
A similar argument can be made for the areas of landfill or storage of processing waste, resulting from the continuation of important construction sites, or to demolition works by explosion such as those related to the modernisation of the Mediterranean Motorway section overlooking the Strait and disused tracts not yet regenerated.
These are large areas, therefore, that represent a factor of environmental and social degradation also because they interrupt the natural and urban scheme with surfaces and features that are physically inaccessible, as well as impeding potential processes of environmental protection and promotion and triggering new cultural strategies for and economic production and social innovation.
An analogous reasoning can be made for the areas and features affected by mining that for reasons similar to those of production or for simple reasons of exhaustion are now abandoned.
The Cave Report edited by Legambiente 2017 describes a drop in active sites and an increase in those abandoned, more than triple, according to an incomplete survey given that Calabria, along with Friuli Venezia Giulia and Lazio, is one of three regions not monitoring extraction activities, failing to draw up, as a consequence, a census of abusive or abandoned sites and able to count only 237 active and 49 abandoned quarries [
26]. The Calabria Region, with the L.R. 40/2009, provides for a contextual recovery of the extractive areas with coordination between the phases of excavation, reorganisation and landscape and environmental recovery of sites. At the moment an excavation license is requested, in fact, it is obligatory to plan the restoration of sites for the reconstruction of the topographic, geomorphological, hydraulic and vegetation structure of the areas involved in cultivation activity, suitable for accommodating the uses and pre-existing destinations programmed by current planning. The interventions essentially favor the reconstitution of the functionality of the ecosystems. In this case, however, checks are often not carried out, due also to a still incomplete regulatory framework, given that Regional Law on the matter refers to the implementation rules of the Regional Mining Plan without the latter having been approved or definitively drafted. Therefore, the task of the Region is to ensure that the owners of disused quarries provide for their environmental landscape restoration as required by the aforementioned regional law.
The Legambiente Report also shows good practices and virtuous examples, such as the management of underground mining activities with the simultaneous recovery of the areas, the recovery of disused quarries to create parks and host tourist activities according to formulas of collective-private and temporary hybrid use, the reduction of the extraction from quarry through the recovery of inert material stemming from abandoned buildings.
3.1.2. Areas That Have Lost the Effectiveness of Ecosystem Services
The phenomenon of the illegal construction typical of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria is manifested in a
extensive form above all, because, as for the whole regional territory, about 4 rooms are registered per resident for a population in constant contraction. The need to rely on abusive building, therefore, even if practiced following the crisis at an alarming rate, in Calabria, 46.6% of illegal buildings compared to those authorised [
27] have discontinuous sections, often with large impermeable surfaces, which occur most commonly along the coastal strips where they can even reach the sandy shoreline. It is estimated, in fact, that the consumption of land in the coastal strip has a 29.5% concentration within the 300 m distance of the coastline. Here, as in the more internal areas, where the phenomenon is more
diluted, even if apparently less impacting on the balance of the territory, illegal building increases, in fact, the loss of effectiveness of ecosystem services due to the removal of natural areas and an increase in the fragmentation of land, also negatively influences the development prospects of sectors vital to the metropolitan economy, such as conscious tourism and quality agri-food production (
Figure 3).
The correct functionality of the land [
28] is also compromised by agro-silvo-pastoral activities inconsistent with the territory or whose nature is even illegal, such as, to mention the most striking case, the phenomenon of abusive pastures in some municipalities included in the homogeneous area of the Piana, whose destructive action was curbed by a complex and articulated plan, outlined and planned within the Inter-institutional Technical Table promoted and coordinated by the Prefecture of Reggio Calabria with the Aspromonte National Park that delivered an unprecedented result, despite its experimental character, when compared to a problem that has been manifesting for over forty years.
In addition to the phenomena of falling into the sphere of illegality, other activities, while not increasing the permeable surfaces, vary the coverage from natural or agricultural to artificial.
This is the case, for example, of construction site areas set up for large construction works—adjacent or near, at times, to productive agricultural areas and valuable landscapes—such as, for example, those preparatory works for the start of construction of the Bridge over the Strait, as the variant of the Cannitello-Villa San Giovanni railway line, or of the modernisation works of the Mediterranean Motorway or the Bovalino-Bagnara transversal artery connecting to the SS 106.
They are areas where for different reasons—works that have not achieved what was originally intended; a connection to the territory in the first case, or that the phase of environmental regeneration has not yet been completed in the second case, or, in the last case, accompany a construction site which has been interrupted for several years—they dominate the territory for long periods without having, at times, a forecast of dismantling and returning the land to its original destination.
The objective of integrating the protection of land functions into territorial planning could be pursued on two fronts; that of replenishing the land for the protection of agricultural and forest land that gives local authorities the possibility, as occurs in Poland, of demanding the removal of valuable arable land in the case of conversion of agricultural land so as to increase the fertility of other land or to reclaim degraded land elsewhere, and that of the identification of areas excluded from the construction of infrastructure in order to guarantee the subsistence of ecological networks, such as takes place in France and The Netherlands, with the delimitation of “blue and green landscape areas”.
3.1.3. Areas with a Loss of Quality of Habitat, Ecosystem Services, with Erosion of Material or Immaterial Assets Linked to Incorrect Use or Accessibility
Of all forms, this is the type of degradation that, in the various forms, most characterises the territory of the metropolitan city.
The areas belonging to sensitive contexts belong to this family, preserving important naturalistic-environmental values, a cultural heritage with strong identity features due to secular processes of human settlement, territorial resources that can still be exploited for innovation and the strengthening of the economic fabric, as much as contrarily, they show a fragility linked to the morphological characteristics of the places, to the lack of infrastructures and basic services, to the problematic socio-economic conditions of the communities.
Parallel to the depopulation of inland areas, in fact, the metropolitan territory, like the regional one, is experiencing a gradual abandonment of agricultural and forestry activities. It is estimated, for example, that Calabria, between 2012 and 2018, lost crops capable of potentially producing about 40,000 quintals of fruit, mainly “antique varieties” (difficult to preserve and not very appreciated by the markets), with a serious loss of biodiversity, or that the production of woody raw materials—an ecosystem supply service guaranteed by natural forest surfaces—suffered, due to soil consumption, a 20% reduction in just six years, between 2012 and 2018.
Also the fragmentation and conformation of the agricultural soils that characterise the metropolitan territory and that do not allow an immediate productivity which is sufficiently profitable according to the traditional formula of mono-functional agriculture, has contributed, if only for economic reasons, to discouraging the formation of a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Although the phenomenon of abandonment may in some cases not determine serious consequences, if not those deriving from a negligence that can be circumscribed to the single areas, the slow but constant abandonment of agricultural and woodland soils has, however, seriously affected the action of systemic care of the territories that preserved the ecological and structural balance of the slopes, feeding the condition of hydrogeological risk and incidence of fires in the metropolitan area.
This specific issue was answered, in the past with good results, with a forest fire prevention plan implemented by the Aspromonte National Park Authority according to a “formula” developed for the defence of forest heritage and biodiversity of the Protected Area that entailed the involvement of the Volunteer and Civil Protection Associations, the Pastors, the Breeders and the direct Farmers, whose work complements the already operational inter-institutional system. The pastors in particular have been entrusted with the unpublished interpretation of the role of “eco-pastor” and of “guardians of aspromontan nature”.
Both the internal areas of the metropolitan city, often invested by strategies and funds—such as, for example, the SNAI and the PSR—aimed at reducing the depopulation of the centers or preserving their natural and cultural characteristics, as well as the coastal strips, increased by infrastructure and services for the greater concentration of anthropic pressure, have experienced, at times, improper use of the building opportunities, often through solutions achieved over excessive amounts of time and achieved only once the initial needs had passed, and due to oversizing or incoherency with regards to the real demands of communities and territories.
This is also the case of the waterproofed surfaces of the numerous shopping centers scattered throughout the territory without any obvious relationship with the real anthropic presence which, in addition to eroding the adjacent commercial network to the detriment of local productivity, modifies the territory with large areas dedicated to buildings and parking areas characterised by short life-cycles, without being regenerated or used for new purposes, but simply re-proposed a few kilometres away, once the original function has been exhausted.
In addition, the structures supporting the Mediterranean motorway can be included, which has recently been modernised, moving to a different location, leaving behind uncontrolled decaying sites, such as service stations, already reduced, after only four years, to a state of ruin.
It is possible to refer then to all the widespread, disordered, spontaneous, sometimes abusive and rectified over the years, direct consequence of an uncontrolled and not always sustainable urban expansion that leads to occupation of the metropolitan land according to two main modalities. The first sees the exploitation of the spaces between the different territorial systems—river courses, coastlines, roads, etc.—which generates, in fact, a territorial fragmentation that reduces the surface of natural and semi-natural environments and an increase in their isolation, which is intensifying as we move from the heart towards the mid-coast and up to the coastal settlements. Therefore, the reduction cannot only refer to surfaces but also to ecological connectivity, resilience and the ability of habitats to provide ecosystem services without considering that fragmentation also damages agricultural activities, because it increases production costs and fuel consumption for processing.
The second follows a linear trend that follows the railway line and the two state roads, the 106 for the Ionian coast and the 18 for the Tyrrhenian one, and generates a continuous city [
29] totally devoid of services in the points of greater distance from the major centers—so as to include coastal communities among the inland areas established by the SNAI—and which welcome a community of inhabitants forced into high commuting rates and dependence on private vehicles to reach workplaces, education and care, but also relationships and of cultural fruition.
In both cases these approaches of land use reflect negatively on the psycho-physical well-being of local communities and on the quality and value of the landscape, whose use, as well as cultural heritage, is often compromised in terms of accessibility and reachability as, at times, of correct interpretation.
We refer, for example, to the screens of second homes and tourist facilities that prevent, for long stretches not only the view, but physical access to the beach, or that inhibit the deposition of protected species’ eggs, such as the caretta caretta turtle, or, the common beach structures built frequently on the coasts of the metropolitan city, or the generation of a dune landscape that would be so useful in countering coastal erosion (
Figure 4).
It is already evident, with respect to the cases examined, how much more urgent and necessary it is to plan the
restoration and defragmentation of ecosystems and to favor ecological connections [
30] rather than giving priority to the management of new projects of large volume and building work. It is necessary, therefore, to plan a reconnection of the surviving spaces between them and the rivers, because they bring the ecological network back to the natural and functional radial pattern of the sea-mountain connection bands that have their core area in the Aspromonte National Park, due to new installations (public and collective permeable areas close to the riverbeds can also function as rolling tanks), the reconfiguration of intrusions (conversion of disused roads and railways) and the elimination of tampering (small demolitions or controlled deterioration actions) according to a process shared with communities that generally have more difficulty in accepting the conversion of the existing than the proposition of a new achievement [
31].
Consider, once again, buildings, even legal ones, that intercept visions of particular value and invalidate the possibility of intercepting valuable landscapes or using architectural sites of documentary value, according to the way in which they were designed.
In the case of cultural assets as of any building that can foresee a re-use whose effects imply effects on the next context and community, it would be desirable not to rely on a traditional approach in which an expert chooses the solution between different alternatives, but to recognize that they can use the cognitive, economic and social resources distributed among more complementary actors. No longer an objectual, but relational approach, no longer a logic aimed at transforming the collective heritage merely into financial value, but in support of medium and long-term development, in the logic of investing in social capital and transforming problematic areas of the metropolitan city into opportunities for growth.
It is precisely in these cases where there is the possibility of affixing direct and indirect bonds to old sites and parts of the territory, endowing the superintendencies, if supported by the municipal administrations, with the ability to trigger correct regeneration processes, re-activation and involvement of the entire territory, starting from a new synthesis of cultural, social, economic-productive resources and offering the community a set of tools for using the territory.
Also the drafting of projects for participation in tenders aimed at the provision of quality public services and spaces, whether it involves a functional qualification of old containers within pre-existing materials, or regarding new projects, should aim to intercept real questions, propose new lifestyles, anticipate trends, feed the well-being of the citizens with public mobility or collective and sustainable health systems, accessibility to cultural, natural and landscape resources, to restore quality to habitats and increase ecosystem services, and vice-versa.