Cultivating Value: Teaching a Job and Mitigating Climate Change Effects While Restoring a Landscape Heritage

Abstract

Abstract In the degraded peri-urban areas, there are several traces of the agrarian landscape heritage: they are not relicts of the past but a resource for managing water, providing fauna and flora biodiversity, and mitigate climate change in the urban environment. A pilot experience of recovering the Milan medieval water meadows has been done in the last two years: the aim was to provide a new job to fragile people, while restoring an ancient landscape. The tangible permanencies have been recovered by unemployed people at the same time as the traditional art of managing water has been taught by ancient watermen. A course has been organized to transfer the knowledge. Several schools have been involved in the practical recovery of artifacts: students enjoyed to care an “ordinary” heritage in their neighbourhood, as a resource for a sustainable way of living, and a good quality landscape. The high social and cultural value provided increased Municipality’s attention to consider a joint management with the social cooperative of this productive landscape and to include didactical visit to water meadow in each student curricula.