Ecosystem Services and Green Communities: Local Answers for the Revitalisation of Inland Areas in Post-Covid Era

The paper aims to develop a reflection on the strategic importance of green communities, starting from the concept contained in Italian Law 221/2015, on the role that ecosystem services (MEA, Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis. Island Press, Washington, 2005) can play in the planning of natural areas and in the management of commons. The paper also intends focusing on those ecosystem services that could be central in the post-Covid era, considering the importance given to the quality and health of the mountain environment and to the opportunity for a repopulation boost. The contribution proposes two scales of application: the first is a hypothesis of use of the ecosystem services offered by the municipal area of Pacentro (AQ), located in the territory of the Maiella National Park in Abruzzo, as a development tool, able to counteract the economic and demographic impoverishment process, which has characterised the Central Apennines for over a century, and at the same time attract new residents from the metropolitan coastal area; the second is the result of ongoing research, applied to the inland areas of Abruzzo, and intends investigating the potential of participatory processes and in particular hopes for the creation of associations of local authorities, with a view to increasing sustainability, capable of recognising the value of the rural and mountain territories, to be exploited in a balanced way, their main resources, including first and foremost, water, woodland and landscape, exploring the ways whereby these factors can be transformed into active policies for the protection and enhancement of the territorial heritage, while highlighting the strategic role that urban planning can assume. The paper will underline the importance which a wide environmental census and measurements of the extent and condition of the stock of natural capital assets can take on, underscoring the financial value of ecosystem services as a potentially new driving force for the economy of mountainous areas. In this regard, the contribution will also highlight the potential of Payment for Ecosystem Service flows between inland areas (ES providers) and urbanised valleys (ES buyers), in order to avoid the impoverishment of the natural ecosystem and recognise the role of the landscape foundation of community identity.