A painful decision, taken at the end of October by the magnificent community of Cortina, mainly due to the high risks that climate change is having in the high mountainsafter the tragedy of the Marmolada glacier, with the eleven ski mountaineers overwhelmed and killed by the detachment of part of the glacier.
In the meeting of 30 October last the Rules of Cortina, the ancient institution of collective ownership of grazing and forest landshave decided to give back to the State property the management of peaks, pinnacles, paths and streams, i.e. those thousands of unproductive hectares located at high altitudes and rented 30 years agowhen the Belluno Dolomites Park was born, to ensure safety and accessibility to high mountain routes and, above all, to prevent any type of speculation.
The problem is not so much the fee to be paid to the State, which is in fact a “symbolic figure”, explains the president of the Rules, Flavio Lancedelli, but rather the “responsibility” that weighs on the shoulders of the historic organizationin the event of an accident involving people or causing damage. In fact, the Rules paid out of their own pocket a sum between 14 and 15 thousand euros for the insurance policy.
It can be a storm, as well as an avalanche or a landslide: we have always done our best to manage those inaccessible territories, but climate change and its consequences force us to give up”
Flavio Lancedelli, president of the Regole d’Ampezzo
The Rules will continue in any case a manage the collective ownership of woods and pastures of the Cortina basin, i.e. the productive part of the land, a green heritage of 16,000 hectares, from which they obtain timber for the families. Everything else returns to the hands of the state property.
But the state will be able to guarantee maintenance of the network of paths and forest roads, to control and clean up high-altitude streams, to manage inaccessible areas, which only a centuries-old experience such as that of the Cortina Rules has been able to ensure with trained men and women?
It’s not easy to manage the mountain. The environment must be maintained, and I don’t know if the state property is able to take on such a heavy task”
Gianluca Lorenzi, the mayor of Cortina
The Rules are “very structured” and know the area well, recalls the mayor of Cortina interviewed by Corriere del Veneto. “Going to check landslides and streams requires preparation. Now we will have to understand what the process will be, what the State property will do, how he will want to manage the territories responsibly ”.
There are no areas that are not at risk: the area must be guarded and monitored carefully”
Gianluca Lorenzi
