In nature the elements water, air, earth, energy are related one another in a continuous recycling circle and nothing goes wasted but everything is continually renewed. This principle at the basis of traditional knowledge has determined in the past the beauty of our urban historical centres and landscape. The shortage of resources is the result of destruction waste. An enormous quantity of meteoric water is not stocked and flows away while precious potable water is destined to toilet use. Solar energy has always been present in tradition and today with the modern photovoltaic techniques it could solve the energetical problems of an entire Country. The piles of rubbish and the quantity of wastewater today constitute a problem but may become a resource. With innovative techniques suitable for the environment and the local societies it is possible to create a system to obtain water from the atmosphere, energy from the sun, soil and fertilizers from recycling: a harmonious human development compatible with cultures and nature.

The following guidelines must be developed:

a)                  in rural areas agriculture must not be considered as a mere productive system but as a necessary action for territorial maintenance;

b)                  in the urban areas environment and town must be integrated and action plans implemented for an auto-sustainable form of human settlement and a new conception of towns as ecosystems.

The programmes should focus on innovative actions in managing the soil, water and energy resources. Particularly it is necessary to:

–      Address financing differently and stop the processes of local knowledge destruction, fires, soil degradation and harmful transformations for the landscape;

–      Enhance and promote traditional producing and water collection and distribution systems;

–      Enhance the adoption of traditional techniques in organizing production in integrated cycles;

–      Provide incentives to auto-poiesis and sustainable programmes in the urban systems; 

–      Promote integration systems between the different segments of the urban cycle (production, consumption and waste);

–      Enhance the population’s participation revaluating the role of the elderly, women, children and of the marginal strata and organizing territorial networks between municipalities, territorial agreements, basin communities and parks.

The local knowledge and the traditional territorial asset must be reintroduced as quality of the typical landscape protection and safeguard in new forms and solutions in order to carry out:

·         A new global role of traditional rural systems with he finality of conserving soil and saving resources, activities made sustainable thanks to the integration of other economies like cultural tourism and archaeology and the consequent proposal of reconverting agricultural methods from industrial forms of agriculture, cause of desertification, back to natural methods.

·         New integrated production, consumption and recycling cycles in urban areas with the valorisation of ancient centres and the reuse of traditional building materials and techniques in new constructions, the creation of new neighbourhoods based on saving and appropriate use of resources and the transformation and re-naturalization of those areas subjected to urban or industrial desertification;

New generation programmes for the territorial asset that consider the aesthetical, cultural and economical aspects of landscape, referred to as a specific quality modelled during a millenary elation between humanity and nature with the objective of consolidating its aspect through the typification of its characteristic elements and innovative reintroduction of the traditional rationale with actions such as natural soil fertilization, aquifer restoration and energy saving.