Provincia di Reggio Calabria Action Plan Study about policy measures for a good governance of the Messina Strait at EU level Index Premise Giuseppe Raffa President of the Province Section I-Nostra good practices Joint governance Chap. I- General aspects: objectives of the development plan; cross – strait aspect 1.1 Towards a model of participatory governance (Amelia Laura Crucitti) 1.2 Identity and Landscape in the Integrated Area of the Strait (Marina Arena) 1.3 Key Performance Indicators of the cities' performance levels. Comparing experiences and hypothesis testing for the Metropolitan City of the Strait (Celestina Fazia) Section II-Nostra good practices Sustainable transport Chap. II- Transports: expected outputs of the possible implementation 2.1 The transport system (Domenica Catalfamo, Giovanna Chilà) Section III-Nostra good practices Preservation of biodiversity Chap. III-Biodiversity: expected outputs of the possible implementation 3.1 Humid environment of the Messina Strait: essential habitat for the biodiversity conservation. The case of Lake Aquila (Calabria- Italia) (C. M. Musarella, G. Spampinato, S. Cannavò, F. Forestieri & E. Cano) 3.2 Characteristics and uniqueness of the ecosystem: the marine and terrestrial fauna of the Messina Strait (Gianni Giglio, Emilio Sperone) Section IV-Nostra good practices Sustainable tourism Chap. IV- Tourism: knowledge and skills 4.1. Local resources as drivers for the development of the Strait's integrated area between methodological and operational translations: shared scenarios between Reggio Calabria and Messina. The role of the metropolitan cities of Reggio Calabria and Messina in the exploitation of the local resources in the Strait Integrated Area (Alessandra Barresi, Gabriella Pultrone) 4.2 The cross- Messina strait swim Chap. V- Conclusions: joint governance across the strait 5.1 The system of the Metropolitan Area of the Strait: an integrated project of territory and innovative governance in the heart of the Euro-Mediterranean Sea (Francesca Moraci) 5.2 Model of development of the Messina Strait Area (Giuseppe Raffa) Section I NOSTRA GOOD PRACTICE Joint Governance EGTC in Bonifacio Created in 2012, the European Grouping of territorial Cooperation (EGTC) of the International Marine Park of the Bonifacio Strait unites the Environment Office of Corsica and the National Park of the Maddalena Archipelago within a single cross – border organisation. The EGTC has the task of promoting the protection, management and joint development of the natural and cultural resources of the Strait of Bonifacio and the Italian National Park, in order to implement a common strategy on sustainable development and harmonized principles of administration. Chap. I- General aspects: objectives of the development plan; cross – strait aspect 1.1 Towards a model of participatory governance (Amelia Laura Crucitti) The legislative project about metropolitan cities leads to a reflection on the governance policies of an area, which has a natural structural complexity due to the morphological proximity of two contiguous territories that belong to different regions and one of them has a Special statute. With Nostra project, funded by the Interreg IV C, the Province of Reggio Calabria has intended compete with other Straits, with similar features in some perspectives, but with a different history, tradition, government system, in order to derive a policy strategy, able to be the motor of the complex ongoing development process. A dynamic methodology, not based on quantitative and objective standard criteria, to be adopted for achieving the optimal governance model of our reality is derived from the physical exchange of - environmental, historical, administrative, socio - economic, and cultural data of each area. The project activities have promoted the study and investigation of the morphological and historical peculiarities of the Strait Area, highlighting the similarities and differences between the two shores, but also the richness of the historical, cultural and environmental heritage of the two territories. The analysis carried out on the economic aspects has also highlighted an infrastructural and services gap , which affects the urban centres of Reggio Calabria and Messina, the territorial integration between the settlement system, which would be easily overcome through the transport and crossing system. The goal is to overcome the territorial dimension and the population size of the city through the application of a complex criterion based on the ability of an area to support an inclusive community life, to support an advanced socio - economic development 1. In this case, the term "wide area” helps to define the redetermination of territorial portions in addition to the provincial dimension, which require a functional management of the supra- municipal services. It should be remembered that the definition of wide area depends on three general models 2: that of 1 A. Piraino, From Independence to Federalism, The Establishment of independent municipal consortium and of metropolitan cities in Sicily, in Federalismi n. 13/2013 2 U. Marchese, Metropolitan areas in Italy at the threshold of two thousand, ECIG 1997; A. Acquarone, Big cities and metropolitan areas in Italy, Bologna 1961 urban continuum, unrelated parts of the system and that based on the major areas of influence. The first considers the metropolitan phenomenon as the expansion of the city, in addition to the historical delimitation. The metropolitan city is an urbanized continuum of artifacts or non-agricultural scopes without continuity solutions. The second, which admits polycentrism, concerns the relationship between population and functions. The third is based on metropolitan regions and areas of influence. The purpose of metropolitan governance is recognized in the ability to create benefits for the entire metropolitan area through a participatory process which involves all the subjects involved in the construction of the wide city 3. The Strategic management is the process through which an organization sets the long-term goals that it wants to achieve, identifies its strengths and weaknesses and its competitive ability; identifies opportunities and external threats; decides the actions to achieve the objectives and the related time; chooses among the various options which it has; changes the plans to adapt to the change and evaluates the obtained results. It unwinds in three main areas: a) the strategic analysis; b) choice of strategies; c) implementation of strategies: the planning of an organisational structure. The Strait Area is presented as a local territorial system, that is a system which lies, at the same time, on separate spheres of power (Municipalities and Provinces) and on aggregates of community functions (Municipalities and Metropolitan cities), which are able to self-organize, in order to operate, de facto, as collective actors in the planning and implementation of development projects, in order to pursue the same common good 4. The metropolitan area can be defined as an, substantially polycentric, plan area, as a consequence of the territorial rebalancing policy, headed for asserting a trend reversal of the territory hierarchisation to a diffuse and balanced municipal network 5. The the Strait Area is presented as an area which includes two main communes- Reggio Calabria and Messina, Cities of the Straits - and a group of other municipalities of small dimensions, except for few realities, which have a strong integration relationship with each other, as regards the economic activities, essential services, social life, as well as cultural relations and 3 M. Mistri, The metropolitan city. A confuse Italian reform, La gru 4 G. Falcon, The sharing institutions, in The Regions n. 4/2012 5 M. C. Gibelli, Three families of strategic plans: to a networking and visionary model, in F. Curti, Strategic planning and management of urban development, Firenze 1996 territorial characteristics. The opened debate on the integration of the two contiguous territories paves the way for a rethinking of the roles and functions of the so-called "intermediate authority ", which would allow the overcoming of the territorial regional asset rigidity, which, until now, has been considered unchangeable 6, paving the way for a redesign of the territorial administrative mosaic. The community that insists in the Straits Area should adopt balancing policies between representative and participatory decision-making body, consolidating local and attraction activities of external enterprises, research centres, tourist flows, within a territorial marketing integrated plan aimed at combining individual and collective actions to locate new activities in this area, to promote a favourable image, to provide high-level training even for the outdoor areas. It is necessary to affirm a strategy of direct interventions for the rearrangement of economy and territory which are sustainable thanks to social fruitions of their self-defining values and identity and to urban and ecological requalification. The policy should include measures on the connection systems, the heavy and light infrastructures, but above all on the connective structures, which allows to the different elements which compose the territory to carry out their duties and to take on the added value, through measures which promote the dimensional growth and the creation of networks and districts. In this regard, it seems important to remobilize the Institutions, so that the area will be recognized