Usi civici di pascolo e legnatico nell’altopiano di Rascino (Rieti), trasformazioni delle antiche forme di democrazia e autogoverno comunitario

Abstract

Since the Middle Ages the vast area of the Rascino plateau (Fiamignano, Rieti) has been burdened by the ‘civic uses’ of pasture and firewood. The primary purpose of civic uses, for the exclusive benefit of residents and clearly explained in the current municipal regulations, is to provide survival opportunities for the poorest. The civic use of pasture exists in the communal lands, and after the harvest also in the private ones. This way, even non-owners have the opportunity to practice sheep farming, an activity that characterizes this territory. The annual assignment of a lot of municipal beechwood to each family guarantees, instead, house heating. The social and productive changes occurred in the middle of the last century modified the management of civic uses. The grazing one has been concentrated in the hands of a few big breeders; that of firewood, suffocated by increasingly stringent laws and regulations, is now practically exclusively used by professional forestry companies. In both cases the social purpose of the civic uses has been completely distorted. This work has a double purpose: to examine the distorted dynamics in place, and to encourage institutions to take the necessary measures to bring everything back to original form, already positively tested elsewhere, with positive economic and social results for the populations and benefits for environmental conservation.