Territory and landscape

Nature and culture

Anthropologist and Alps expert Annibale Salsa explores the interactions between humans and the environment that have shaped Trentino over the years. He distinguishes between extraction and construction activities, arguing that both contribute to shaping territories as long as they maintain a balance. We are both part of and creators of landscapes.

Our mountains, the most heavily populated in the world, symbolise how this relationship evolves, continually shaping and redrawing not only the landscape, but also our perception of it. Landscape is culture, breathing and moving to the rhythm of history and community identity. However, landscape is also nature, resulting from the environmental, ecological, and morphological characteristics of places. If the value of both cultural and natural components is not taken into account, territories become unstable.

In Trentino, awareness of the unique value of the landscape, and of how it reflects not only an external image but also the deep-seated identity of those who have always lived there and those who choose to live there, whether temporarily or permanently, is leading to innovative policies and renewed commitment to its protection, including bottom-up initiatives.  

Osservatorio Trentino del Paesaggio (Trentino Landscape Monitoring institute)

Addressing contemporary challenges requires an educational approach that involves communities, bringing together the local and the global, culture and nature, and all those who are involved: those who come, those who return, those who stay and those who leave. This is one of the reasons why the Scuola per il Governo del Territorio e del Paesaggio (Trentino School of Management, TSM) was established in Trentino in 2008, followed a couple of years later by the Trentino Landscape Monitoring institute.

These two bodies work in synergy with each other, with institutions and with communities to monitor and collect data, but above all to promote a culture that values the landscape through education and training. They recognise the importance of accompanying land transformation processes with a shared, sustainable vision in the short and long term.  

The challenge

What will the Alps be like without glaciers and high pastures? Who will manage the abandoned Alpine farmsteads? Who will have the patience to care for the terraces that adorn the slopes of the Val di Cembra? Who in Trentino will paint the new landscapes?  

Change is inevitable, and it is in this change that true beauty lies. However, Annibale Salsa points out that this must be done with care because the loss of ancient knowledge and the uncritical adoption of particularly voracious external models threatens the authenticity and quality of life in these places. 

Tackling contemporary challenges requires the attention and passion of an artist who is aware that they are not working on a blank canvas, but on an existing painting that is varied, full and dynamic, and that each new addition will affect the overall design. This requires time, skill and passion. It also takes the courage to allow ourselves to be moulded by the landscape we are painting, which is within us and with us. While respecting its past and present, we must not yield to speculation; we must maintain its authenticity while being ready to evolve towards new dimensions.