ecology

reflections

The rights of the communities

When a community, in balance with the places in which it is established, directly managed their own needs and resources as necessary and takes down the detailed rules of exploitation that do not affect the potential of these resources. In this way does not inhibit the future livelihood, and with appropriate behaviors, tends to minimize the negative effects related to the removal of matter and the transformation of the territory.
When the collection and processing is not dependent on a community but by individuals acting on the basis of purely economic values ​​assume dall'inalienabilità solely based on size, typical of the current economic and social model, increasing quantities of products and related profits. This condition implies that the production, once satisfied with the real needs of users, is based on induced needs, on an unequal distribution, of enormous inefficiencies, waste and on the under-utilization.
This will profoundly alter the landscape, destroy habitat, degrade the environment, affecting the health of the inhabitants to an extent immeasurably superior to those arising from real needs.
Today, the communities most affected external proactive action, can not or do not have the capacity to take resources directly and are excluded from effective management of its territory.

When a community refuses to bear the cumbersome and harmful changes, the promoters call it the indispensable, even in the case of an application artificially increased, and this often allied business interests, governments and administrations. Even the end-users often perceive critically the inescapability of goods or processing requests for alternatives and not accrue not only of location (so you do here or there), but structural (it does or does not) and system (change in market , changes in mode of transport, etc..) the choices made.
The community that is opposed is excluded, ridiculed, marginalized, become "selfish", "not far-sighted", "no overview", "retrograde", "supported by small interests", "careful not to spread social welfare."
In many cases, the conflict with the local population is overcome by using the lure of employment, the creation of temporary jobs related to the implementation or operation of, other times it proceeds with mitigative or compensatory measures, with investments in schools, roads, public services. But usually the price of environmental and social community is immeasurably greater than the value of these interventions.
These forms of compromise offend the rights of communities and individuals.
The communities have every right to maintain and improve the environmental quality of its territory and welfare of individuals who compose it. This right is a top priority, undeniable, inescapable by any other type of interest. There are values higher than the right to live well in a place and manage their own existence in a qualified relationship with the natural and social system in which it takes place. It is a right that goes beyond the economy and the '"national interest" and can not be redressed through money.
So, when the levy of a resource, the transformation of an area, the construction of an infrastructure damaged the balance of a region, worsens the condition of the existence of individuals and communities is not to be implemented.

There are two simple tests that could be done to verify the adequacy and the indispensability of a transformation.
Firstly, if you can do in the "garden" each means that does not bother anyone. "Not in my backyard" is not a form of selfishness if accompanied by an awareness of the gardens of others.
Second, the profits arising from the use of resources and transformations are the property of the community. The community does not grant concessions, does not claim compensation, does not seek other jobs or handouts: owns and acquires all of the profits products.
In this way, placing the welfare of individuals and communities directly in the center of the choices and reducing substantially the economic interests that support only unnecessary transformations generating profit, you could have a less clouded the real needs on the basis of which could be make choices in which the community has an active role and is able to manage their environment and their future.

The housing question

The poor can not buy homes, not fuel the housing market and therefore will have no less than government intervention. Yet the territory of the planet is covered with houses and in our country there is an area per capita and a number of unoccupied homes or seasonally occupied dwelling that they can make twice the population. This condition has deconstructed the environment degraded the landscape and led to all kinds of pollution (emissions, waste, drainage, etc.). The problem is directly linked to the role that is given to the wrong houses that:

• are, in industrialized society, and now global consumption, a way of producing profits and not responding to a need. The are so direct that the construction is opposed by the citizens, and would rather let people hoping that one day in the barracks at least some of them may be a question for the market rather than allowing them to build their home in self-management in the shoulder this way cost much, much smaller (think of the permanence of hundreds of thousands of people in the Roman slums until the end of the seventies of last century).

• value the land and therefore can make a significant profit on sale and even the transition from agricultural land to land, in which the people involved in the recent past we are strongly committed to building to consolidate a right inherent in the property forgetting that the ground deliberately, just to be part of an ecological system and social unity and organic, which is a common good, in the case, is granted by the community the opportunity to build sub-condition of a predetermined level of quality.

• are an investment because its value always increases, and in some periods guarantees a return higher than any other type of investment, even without considering the urban expansion, and then the added value inherent in '"closer" or incorporation of the buildings suburbs, the price of the buildings was reduced only during the second world war (and related bombing).

• produce an additional profit when rented (not just think of renting apartments but to other shops in the historic and commercial centers that provide revenue, almost black, of large-scale).

Most of the Italian population is integrated into the proposed housing model, and makes ongoing benefits (while part suffers the disadvantages). The attempt to reduce the uncertainty of old age in the absence of adequate social coverage, the search for stable integrative contributions to domestic economy, the desire to secure savings outside the financial oscillations is realized with the acquisition of property.
This situation is an intolerable burden not only for the environment but also for the economy because it chokes with high rents crafts, manufacturing, commercial, creative blocks amounts that could be used to fund activities, places a huge burden on young to be sure of a home are committed to dozens and dozens of years so that the entire life of individuals in the Italian society is dominated by the presence of bulky houses, rents, mortgages.

The above blends to shapes entrepreneurial economically much stronger, so, in a frantic rush to guarantee economic, small and medium incomes support the great speculations. The small interest, whose needs may be obvious in very different ways, says the massacre of the territory, the major amnesties, brutal laws on common assets and abuses, but also the exploitation of students, immigrants, the poor have to pay rent unsustainable. The small and widespread interest becomes an accomplice to a modus operandi that deconstructs the environment and penalizes a part of society.
The solutions to this situation can not be intervening in the construction sector alone, albeit with the demand for social housing. However, it is essential to change the context in which construction work and the mechanisms of the demand for housing investment. For example you might:

• Make possible the direct construction by the inhabitants (the communities Infrastructure areas and residents to build this way reducing costs and limiting the speculative interests).

• Sustainable pensions, incomes and services for the elderly (community, neighborhood).

• Reduce the market and to build only for overt and collective needs.

• Support the restructuring and rehabilitation of existing assets (huge and underutilized) assets that characterized inter alia by the production processes in which there is a lower concentration of profits (increased use of craftsmen, small businesses, labor).

• Change the land income and consider the land a common good for which there is no right to build by the owner but the right to retain the free space (agricultural or natural) from the community. In this way the possibility of construction would be an exceptional and not a common practice.

These are difficult problems to resolve because of the economic structure at the base of the country to address them properly, however, need to be addressed with a comprehensive view, revealing the complexity of the reasons that have been originated and finding durable solutions and self-managed.

testimonials

Adapt, adjust: Indonesian Aboriginal

The picture shows the traditional house of a population of Indonesia.
Before building the house of the branches of the tree growth is directed to allow the presence of the platform on which rests the structure. The tree is adapted to the presence of man and the man's house adapts to the situation. The basis of the survival of the house there is the survival of the tree to which it does not survive death.
In this delicate balance and continued to adapt and adjust human action should be characterized.

The awareness of space Inuit and !Kung

In the thirties of last century, a researcher asked the Inuit (Eskimos) to draw their hunting grounds.
The designs were developed by different individuals resembled each other and very similar to the aerial with the only difference being that the most important areas for hunting and for the life of the community were designed larger than the others.
For! Kung of South Africa's perception of the landscape is limited by natural features defined within which highlight the places where they manage resources including hunting areas and routes to them.
Were common knowledge and the whole community was aware of an area of expertise and resources that were present in it.
In our society we have maps and satellite images of such high definition that allows us to see far beyond the territory in which the individual moves, but they do not know and is not aware of space and has difficulty in giving value and then differentiate and store space (also because of the excessive mobility).
Lack knowledge of their geographical area and there is no relationship between the individual and resources, the relationship between space and society is deficient, and even surface for this aberrant.

observations on the contemporary

Up to which point

In some photos a few years ago we saw a number of materials, mostly oxygen cylinders as well as plastic sheeting, abandoned on a snowy plateau.
The photo was taken in more than 8000 meters above sea level and showed the landfill equipment thrown by the expeditions of the climbers before the last jump on the peaks of Everest.
In the early nineties an expedition of volunteers gathered in this place about two tons of waste by declaring that they were a small part of a total for the most part lay in the depths of the crevasses, and so it was irretrievable.
If the peaks are reduced for the fun of "adventurers" because the rest of the planet should be in better condition?
It is not obligatory to go to Everest, does not bring benefits to the community (apart from begging for carers), is just a "whim". But the consumer society is based on the uncontainably induced desires of the market. This uncontainably start processes that lead to structure the work to make it easy so as not to exclude potential users even non-fans.
The problem is all here. Figuring out when to stop.
The conditions of environmental changes would force humanity to make a deep reflection if only to ensure their survival.
The reduction in fuel consumption and birth control are not only the systems most likely to allow the survival of humanity but also to reduce the tensions arising from the need to supply the market and thus the control of marketable resources. On the contrary, the economy is all set on continued growth, without end. How many roads necessary? How many roads which are necessary in the future? This economy can not answer. If you answer that would define the limits, as well as dismayed inhibit the market.
The growth can not be unlimited if the work is growing "green" in which the goods pose a greater attention to reducing the impact but still pointing to increased sales and not to replace the existing freight but they run in parallel. And in this economy, which guaranteed huge profits for the few and fails to provide widespread quality of life, if there is no growth recession.
Yet looking at the waste to 8,000 feet a little doubt on the model used and the importance of limits determined by the availability of resources from the necessity of maintaining environmental quality and equity of access to those resources should come to even the most ardent supporters of a model unfair.

Industrialization and waste

There are industrial processes that generate waste in the form of waste production, packaging (which must be of greater consistency than those of traditional products to ensure no alteration of the goods on long journeys, in which large retailers do not want to bulk) , production in excess of needs (to overcome the competition, to reduce costs, to occupy new market areas), of "innovations" designed to dispose of goods as effective to support the production of products "disposable" (which if the goods are environmentally aberrant perfect for this type of production model).
But industrial processes produce waste with the limitation on the duration of goods (especially food) and the production of goods of low quality (and in this Chinese production is a teacher) that having the shape of objects are in fact already operating waste at the time of sale.
Now if you think that the disposal is made ​​by the general public in the form of direct taxes as well as increased the sale price of goods, and that the chain of disposal is also an industrialized waste in this economic model are considered goods and as such are subject to the criteria of growth as the basis of well-being of the productive sector.
The reduction of waste, therefore, takes the same value and the same difficulty of the objective of reducing consumption, but also as important.

The waste in Napoli

The case of the accumulation of waste in the streets that has affected Naples several times in recent years is the result of a wrong model whose crisis if that city has had its maximum exposure may also occur in other situations.
The first condition on which the structure of the model is incorrectly said to expropriate the citizens of any possible direct action in waste management.
In the case of Naples citizens found themselves buried under tons of waste without being able to do anything and you are so directly related to the load of a problem whose management had been deliberately excluded.
In recent years significant numbers of loans were committed to the solution of the problem, and always has been undertaken in finance companies and technicians.
Yet in the city submerged by waste of a few months ago there were five districts in which, through the collection "door to door" was obtained for collection from 60% to 90% of the total (well above the required EU) and whose streets were clear of waste.
That is a direct action by citizens, although coordinated and directed, was reduced in a macroscopic quantities of waste to take to the landfill and are recycled to produce enormous amounts of material.
Lacking the ability to fully manage each of the waste cycle (reduction, reuse, separation, recovery, recycling, composting) in urban areas the population is squeezed from the risk that the current widespread mechanisms of collection and disposal, for the most part governed by profit and the lack of social attention, and feeding the results may get stuck on it.
The only guarantee is to take part: be aware of what happens, the chosen route of administration, be active in the implementation of solutions, having the ability to self-manage at least part of the cycle.

images from contemporaneity

Vicoli, bassi and ecosystems

In the sixties many "right-thinking" of Naples who saw the clothes hanging in the small shops that would expand the public domain in the dense alleys of social relations, all the signs of a cultural degradation, the signs of a lack of decorum that inhibited the future of the city.
This setting, combined with the pursuit of a different quality of buildings, in the seventies and eighties has started a "clean" of those areas which although aimed at a shared improvement of housing conditions, however, has led to the construction of similar settlements, and some cases worse, than those of all urbanized areas of the country.
But you can take photos on the following considerations: for drying clothes on either side of the alley there was need for social relations between people concerned and on which passersby often rain water from clothes, to occupy the ground public interest (essential given the limited space available in the shops) was necessary to find an agreement with the inhabitants of the alley, trying to be understanding and willing to understand. It appears from the image complexity and depth of social relations as well as function, perhaps not consciously sought, the clothes in the summer air cooling.
It outlines a system characterized by social and environmental disorder and diversity: a system in which everyone is able to use some of the energy not used by others. Articulated system, mature, stable, organic.
From this observation the criticism of the sixties on the degradation of the city and the practical solutions are moved by a desire for order which would form the behavior: the order imposed by the same buildings, the streets wide, standardized reports from, the disregard in the design needs and habits of citizens. The same order that led to the social vacuum of the suburbs that has sometimes been replaced, facilitated by the vacuum created, the order of the Camorra organizations.
Maybe it was worth preserving habits "unseemly" when they represented a vitality and a capacity to make their lives economically and operationally supporting those who worked and lived in that system and take action to eliminate those who were the burdens arising from a settlement as improved physically but socially with which to understand and interact.

Trabocchi, luntri

The two images represent two fishing methods traditionally used in the respective coasts of the middle Adriatic sea and in the Strait of Messina.
They are highly selective systems connected to the type and availability of fish, such as the huge number of other modes of fishing specialist, special, traditionally used in the world.
The majority of fishing is carried out simultaneously with a small number of non-selective systems (either species or size) in a short time but provide large quantities of fish, a quantity that will undermine the natural system and therefore the same productive activity.
This is similar to all industrial processes: disconnected from the places, and the balances that characterize them, standardized, high energy consumption, without temporal perspective, and unable to preserve those resources where the renewability is precisely the subject of levy.

To live in the sites

Living places involves an adjustment of the same needs and the pleasure of those who live in them. This is a right of everyone, a right that can be implemented with a direct action on the condition that it is not a nuisance to anyone or in any manner directly or indirectly.
The photo is taken in Reggio Calabria, a few years ago. The resident has organized a small vegetable garden in a confined space from the sidewalk (perhaps a public space that the inhabitant has fenced and cultivated there) is a believer and characterizes the entrance of his home, located in a building with a small shrine, he wants to chill out under the tree (which is in the public road) and recovered a bench and two chairs (then connected with the chain for safety).
By these signs understand the needs and pleasure sought: a vegetable garden, the cool shadow, a "living room" open to talk with friends and watch passers-by.
These are the data on which to model a city as a house.
The answer that comes from building and running from town to this question is developed through standards, regulations, services and does not address the specifics of this request. In a very simplified, this means that either the request is considered to be of common interest and then the planning instruments allow everyone a newsagent, two white plastic chairs, a green bench and a small vegetable garden or the request is not considered to be of common interest and nobody would have anything or anyone is allowed to directly targeting what you want.
Instead we should give more attention to each individual request as different and special, because each of them has a great value as well as the common (provided they do not bring harm to others and the environment) and through them we structure the places and you can live pleasantly.

Adriano Paolella