WP 4 – Networking and Awareness WP Leader: ZRC SAZU

Deliverable T4.2.1

CAPACITY-BUILDING ATELIERS

Participating Partners: ZRC SAZU Mountain Community of Camonica Valley Bauges Massif Regional Natural Park

This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme.

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has become an increasingly recognized and popular phenomenon ever since the Convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in 2003, which equated its importance to that of the traditionally more established tangible heritage. However, it depends more on its bearers than immovable cultural heritage or museum objects. The bearers, consisting of communities, groups and individuals, transmit it to the next generations and recreate it as a response to their history, natural environment and society. In doing so, they face many challenges like the disappearance of knowledge and the decline of skills among younger generations, the excessive commercialisation of practices and the (mis)appropriation of its results. They are therefore looking for ways to preserve, protect and promote their heritage. Capacity-building ateliers in France, Italy and helped selected local communities to do it, providing the required knowledge and connecting them with decision-makers. SLOVENIA In Slovenia, the capacity-building atelier was organized as a 4-day event from May 23rd to 26th, 2018, at the Slovenian Alpine Museum in . It targeted local communities of the RAGOR’s pilot action as well as other stakeholders from the Gorenjska region. It started with a national round table on the development potentials of cultural heritage and its inscription in the national registry of ICH. The Coordinator for the safeguarding of the ICH in Slovenia presented the procedure to inscribe ICH into this registry as well as the consequences of such inscription. ZRC- SAZU presented cases of food practices from different parts of Slovenia. The discussion focused on potential elements for inscription and was linked to the food tasting of local culinary heritage prepared by the local association of rural women.

Association of rural women from the Municipality of presented food typical for this region (Photo: Jasna Fakin Bajec, 23rd May 2018).

The next two days were dedicated to the experts and decision-makers. Besides ZRC SAZU, co-organizers of the event were the Slovene Ethnological Association, the Croatian Ethnological Association, the Slovene Ethnographic Museum and the Slovene Alpine Museum. The event was part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage and its honorary sponsor was the Slovenian National Commission for Unesco. The speakers at the official opening were the representatives of the Ministry of Culture (the representative of the Unesco office was missing due to health reasons), the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, the Slovene Alpine Museum, the Slovene and Croatian Ethnological Associations as well as of major stakeholders from the Alpine space: the Alpine Convention (secretary general Markus Reiterer, the representative of the Slovenian Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning Blanka Bartol) and Alpfoodway project leader Cassiano Luminati. Afterwards, the event focused on the presentation of various cases from Slovenia and Croatia where local communities and museums safeguard, transmit and promote ICH, including by inscribing it into national or world Unesco lists. Heritage experts – 45 altogether – discussed the main challenges, opportunities and obstacles of the use of heritage for the development of places. The discussions were divided into the following sessions: ICH between experts, communities and decision- makers; safeguarding and interpretation of heritage and awareness-raising activities; ICH and museums; and ICH between field and registries. On the last day, participants attended a study visit dedicated to the beekeeping heritage. The event connected experts in the field of ICH who discussed the issues of safeguarding, promoting and utilizing heritage. It linked local community to local museums and set the ground for future collaboration. It informed local decision- makers of the potentials of ICH for the development of the area and of the ongoing activities of stakeholders dealing with ICH.

Director of the Slovene Alpine Museum at the opening ceremony (Photo: Jasna Fakin Bajec, 24th May 2018).

ITALY In Italy, the capacity-building atelier was organized in Camonica Valley. The community has recognized the main actors for safeguarding and valorising of food practices within the valley. The focus has been on private actors, which act at different levels, as individuals or as part of a small network. Project partner Mountain Community of Camonica Valley has built a team of two young graduates (an agronomist and an economist) and an expert in production chain development and marketing: the first two were to do a survey on the identity of the actors, and the latter was to investigate the network structure, the role and the responsibility of different actors involved, as well as to conceive the capacity building atelier. He community worked to set up a really useful "Capacity Building Atelier" that could serve as a replicable model for the development of the Alpine foodways in other Alpine regions. Its goal was to improve the skills and the expertise of a multifunctional network and to increase its efficiency in terms of safeguarding and valorisation of food cultural heritage. The Capacity Building Atelier has been organized in three phases. Phase 1: Mountain Community of Camonica Valley made a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the companies (sector of activity, products, supply chains, typology and legal nature of the company, company size) and subsequent evaluation of their networking attitude and product quality. The goal was to create a focus group representing the agricultural sector of the Camonica Valley. Farm selection was based on specific and combined criteria set by their relation to landscape safeguarding and to a sustainable food experience. Mountain Community of Camonica Valley analysed 50 farms. Phase 2: Mountain Community of Camonica Valley analysed the farms, applying a SWOT method to evaluate their entrepreneurship and their ability to act and collaborate within a small-scale area. It set up a matrix for evaluating the farms in terms of quality and capacity in order to build a territorial network. Phase 3: Mountain Community of Camonica Valley formed focus groups, defining common goals and identifying the problems of each group. Every group was coached by an expert with the help of two assistants. Together, they defined a set of questions to manage focus groups. This Capacity Building Atelier format can be replicated for forming small networks of farmers in Alpine valleys. It is based on:

1. the identity of farmers – landscape identity, built heritage, position, supply chain, products; 2. communication tools and channels, marketing strategies; 3. vision and planning know-how, product or process innovations, integrated strategies and synergies. This matrix can serve as an analytic tool to evaluate the capacity of a network to collaborate and exchange skills.

FRANCE

Capacity-building workshop “Alpine food heritage, experiences and challenges in the Bauges Massif and in the Alps” has been organised on the 1st and 2nd October 2019 in the Bauges Massif Regional Natural Park (at the Chartreuse d’Aillon, Aillon-le- Jeune). The workshop was conceived as a replicable model of sharing safeguarding ICH experiences and achieving sustainable development goals.

It combined three main dimensions:

1. A multinational approach to sharing experiences across the Alpine territory; 2. A multi-level network of local inhabitants and actors, communities, groups and individuals, professional producers, farmers, artisans and associations, policy-makers and researchers, strengthening their experiences and perspective in a cross-sectorial dialogue; 3. A willingness to create/strengthen the feeling of an Alpine “heritage community”, sharing the common objectives of identifying and safeguarding the main elements of Alpine ICH.

The ateliers combined presentations of experiences, narratives, living objects and products (working tools, vegetables, herbs and other symbols of different activities and know-how) in the format of thematic round tables, moderated by the team coordinating the inventorying process in the Massif. After an opening by the president of Bauges Massif Regional Natural Park and a representative of the region, three introductory presentations focused on the intangible cultural heritage and its values for the Alps, on the impact of the cross-border participatory inventorying of Alpine Food Heritage, and on the challenges of local economies in a global market, considering some Alpine good practices from the project.

Opening of the workshop (Photo: Marion Marpaux, Producer of old varieties of potatoes from Aosta Valley PNRMB, 1st October 2019). (Photo: Diego Rinallo, 1st October 2019)

Inviting communities and actors of several Alpine valleys included in the Alpfoodway project (Aosta Valley, Camonica Valley, Valchiusella, Val Poschiavo, Valais) to join the round tables, six main elements of alpine ICH have been highlighted, representing the stages of a local meal:

- Knowledge on gathering wild herbs, mushrooms and fruits in the Bauges Massif and in the Alps; - Gardening knowledge and practices in the Alps; - Traditional bread-making in the Alps; - A mountain of herd: grasslands and cheeses; - Honey culture in the Bauges Massif and the Alps; - Traditional pastry-making in the Bauges Massif

The structure of thematic tables allowed listening to local voices and to guest experiences from other contexts, in a dynamic exchange of reflection and action, thinking together and living experiences of sharing, formal and informal transmission.

The final debate opened up perspectives of sustainable development in the Bauges and the Alps. Local activites were shared along with similar ongoing experiences within Alpfoodway. Representatives of the Chamber of Agriculture, Chamber of Trades and Crafts, museums, universities, regional institutions as well as experts from France, Switzerland and Italy took part in the debate. Finally, the process towards a UNESCO multinational nomination for the Alpine food heritage, its challenges and opportunities were presented by the project’s coordinator Cassiano Luminati.

This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme.

Round table on wild gathering practices. (Photo: Silvia Tasting of bread baked in the wood oven (Photo: Diego Ala, PNRMB, 1st October 2019). Rinallo, 1st October 2019).

This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme.