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The study will be published in scientific paper form (with the biocultural diversity inventory attached to the biocultural map of Sicily). A closing public event will be organized to present the research results to the people involved in the research and to all those interested in the topic. The study and the public event are finalized to propose a strong collaboration between the researchers and all the main actors of the research (and all those interested) in order to create a large network for the protection of Sicilian biocultural diversity and thus make this research a real seed of change.

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For data collection a qualitative approach would be used: surveys and interviews divided by province. It will follow the following sampling scheme: per province, 30 biocultural diversity custodians selected in typical festivals and local markets (a), 10 representatives of political institutions, 10 representatives of educational institutions and 5 landscape ecologists (b), randomly selected from available regional lists, using a random number generator in Excel

Spatial information to collect all the data about the different types of landscapes in Sicily will be integrated through a combination of GIS analysis and participatory mapping activities

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Sicily needs an advanced inventory though. An inventory not only of the main Sicilian traditional landscapes, and their typical medicinal and wild food plants (already inventored by several researchers), but also of the connected agri-cultural, food, herding, artistic and linguistic traditions (with a special focus on those at risk of extinction). So, a biocultural diversity inventory attached to a biocultural map of Sicily (overlapping biological, cultural, linguistic diversity hotspot maps) should be created.

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If we know it and its importance, we can protect it

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If we know it and its importance, we can protect it

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The first steps towards effective programmes for the protection of traditional Sicilian landscapes must be preceded by a reconnaissance and inventory phase. Sicily is one of the regions with the highest number of Geographic Italian Landscapes. Yet, at present, in the regional context, so far there has been only one study inventorying Sicilian landscapes, conducted by Barbera and Cullotta in 2012.

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Traditional landscapes: the inextricable relation between biodiversity and cultural diversity

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Traditional landscapes: the inextricable relation between biodiversity and cultural diversity

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Landscapes are the result of complex interactions between biodiversity (at all levels, including species richness, ecosystem and biotope diversity) and cultural diversity, including material and immaterial aspects - architectural heritage, traditions, customs, local traditional agricultural practices, dialectal culture, etc. (Bazan G. et al., 2016).  As a consequence, as traditional landscapes disappear, all those several cultures developed within and together with them will die (and vice versa).

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A typical Sicilian cart

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Some Sicilian traditions: hands vs. machines

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Raffaele La Scala, the last master cartwright of Agrigento

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Pietro Impellizzeri, the last cane and wicker basket weaver in the centre of Catania

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To date, landscapes are being increasingly degraded, homogenized and urbanized, right in accordance with the today’s dominating unsustainable culture, which is an over-productive and consumerist culture. In fact, soils are becoming severely consumed due to intensive monoculture farming and out of control urbanization. The latter is also caused by land abandonment: people are increasingly moving from rural to urbanized areas, often breaking the valuable traditional knowledge inheritance, fruit of a millenary deep relationship between humans and the environment.

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From the Neolithic Age Sicily has been the site of continuous farming that has enriched the landscape, produced by multi-crop productive models (e.g. coltura promiscua) or other multifunctional patterns, and defined as "traditional".

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An ancient and typical farmyard for threshing lentils with the aid of animals (Island of Linosa, Sicily, Italy)

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Sicily, due to its geographic position, the variety of the pedological and physiographic characteristics, as well as the ensuing meso- and micro-climatic variability, has been an important reservoir of biocultural diversity since the Tertiary Period (Barbera and Cullotta, 2012). Due to its central position in the Mediterranean, it has acted as a veritable melting pot for the ethnobotanical knowledge of the rural communities of the entire basin (Pasta et al., 2020)