Hosted at The University of Primorska, Slovenia, the OCHER project investigated, with a multidisciplinary approach, the relation between specific historical forms of lands and resources collective management and the current environmental and landscape value of those areas, inquiring the issue of accessibility rights to natural resources.
The research addressed different kinds of “institutions for collective action”, at different scales and with a very extended time frame. In rural areas, where conservation and sustainable use of the environment were largely centred on “people working with nature”, the minimal structures of organisation historically were mainly households. In contemporary times, these ancient household management networks were replaced by more formalised structures or institutions (consortia, family groups, agrarian communities).
A combined historical, anthropological and juridical approach was thus needed for a better understanding of the long-term effects of resource use in the environment, for a deeper reflection on the specificity of (collective) subjects and on the mechanisms of (collective) legal actions and institutions, analysed in particular in the light of important political and institutional changes (the end of socialist regimes, for example).
The research had three main objectives (corresponding to three different Work packages):
O1. The core objective was to work on case studies, mainly selected following the Habitat Directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC), from the Site of Community Importance list located in Slovenia and Italy (Karst and Dinaric Alps), comparing them with other European and Eastern European cases. Through a deep historical and ethnological analysis, the goal was to offer a non-linear reconstruction, at a local scale, of common lands management, where bargaining and negotiation performed a fundamental role to guarantee dynamic sustainability between social competition and an equal and durable access to resources.
O2. The second objective addressed the theoretical aspects of the juridical and anthropological relation man/nature, with strict references to different European legal systems and codifications. Many scholars are working on ownerships issues related to environmental problems, trying to define the theoretical framework of a juridical re-interpretation of the concept of property: It is possible, nowadays, to imagine different forms of sovereignty on natural resources? Does the notion of property interpreted as faculty to dwell a place have a better ecological impact? Does a vision of ownership centred on uses and practises respond to our environmental problems?
O3. The third objective was applicative and had the aim to work on concrete projects in the field of natural and cultural heritage. The challenge was to use the historical and ethnographic research to analyse jurisdictional and social dynamics in rural local communities, and to bridge the worlds of research and public administration, policy makers, local associations and managers of local spaces, addressing at the same time the current European policies on the topic. Thanks to the research carried out, it was possible to elaborate other proposals, such as the GMAJNA project, part of a larger INTERREG Italy-Slovenia project, still in the evaluation phase, in which concrete proposals for local development (environmental management, sustainable tourism, valorisation of the cultural heritage) were made.
