6 minute read
WHY POLLICA?
CONVIVIALITY.
Food is so much more than energy and nourishment. Food is family, experience, inclusion, and community. Food is identity. In the Mediterranean basin, commensality and conviviality have become aspects of cultural heritage to be preserved and enhanced. Pollica, one of the seven emblematic communities of the Mediterranean Diet, which became an intangible heritage of humanity in 2010, is the undisputed spokesman of this lifestyle, a lifestyle that in food and with food pursues its Mediterranean identity, a ritual of deep respect for nature, in a dynamic balance, archetype of adaptation, resilience, and evolution.
culture.
Mediterraneity is often defined as the "particular way of interpreting and living the most ancient social act of humanity: eating, which constitutes the synthesis of a set of elements and values proper to a geographical, historical, ethical, and cultural place: the Mediterranean basin." No wonder then that Pollica, a crossroads of cultures, has taken strength from cultural cross-pollination, of cultural diversity the foundation for inclusion and of the richness of culture, a natural and cultural landscape worthy of being a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
INTEGRAL ECOLOGY.
Over the course of time and thanks to the work of the former Mayor, Angelo Vassallo, Pollica has become a virtuous example of what constitutes the valorization of the territory and the protection of the environment. For more than ten years, the Cilento coast has gone from being anonymous to becoming a source of luster and local pride: following the expansion of water purifiers in the seaside villages of Acciaroli and Pioppi, Legambiente, the Italian environmentalist association, recognizes it as one of the pearls of the Italian sea. The commitment of Vassallo's administration pioneering efforts towards differentiated waste collection and the fight against building speculation and land consumption: battles that continue to be substantiated today, with the Mayor Stefano Pisani. Pollica then is the result of the balance of all these faces and elements. As in the past, today Pollica continues to represent a PRECIOUS PLACE OF MEETING. Like the one between Stefano Pisani, current mayor of Pollica and Sara Roversi, serial food entrepreneur.
The Mediterranean Diet, as a lifestyle, is an example of the perfect balance between what is good for humans and what is right for the planet.
- Sara Roversi
"Starting from Pollica, a town that has become a symbol of lawfulness thanks to the courageous example of Mayor Angelo Vassallo, is a gift, but for those of us who work to form future generations it is also a declaration of renewed responsibility. The path traced with incredible foresight, consistency, and concreteness by Mayor Angelo Vassallo is a source of great inspiration for those who are called to create the future and form positive agents of change. His story teaches us that we have to start from protecting our territory, taking care of the land, and respecting nature in order to plan a prosperous future for the community. The Mediterranean Diet, as a way of life, is an example of a perfect balance between what is good for humanity and what is right for the planet. Today, downstream of a pandemic that has upset the balance of the world, following the path traced by a pioneer, a true example for new generations, and in a territory that is the cradle of our culture, a model for the enhancement of biodiversity and a symbol of the struggle for environmental protection, each educational experience takes on a unique value that allows us to understand how much places as well as politics can contribute to building a better future."
- Sara Roversi, Founder of Future Food Institute President of Future Food Mediterraneo srl - Benefit Society
- Stefano Pisani
It's really hard to say what's going on in Pollica: you can only live it. Believing strongly and committing oneself to one's ideas means transforming them into real actions. Pollica is a town that for centuries has been forged through determination, resilience, and will. Still today, it represents a community, which has become an emblematic symbol, in which the important thing is how one lives, not what one earns; in which happiness originates from essential things, from simple and daily gestures, from the sharing of values anchored in the territory. Pollica would not exist without Cilento, just as it would not exist (as we know it today) without the dense network of exchanges, relationships, encounters, stratification of cultures generated for hundreds of years around and through the Mediterranean. It is the result of innovations transformed into traditions. I firmly believe that Cilento and Pollica are capable of becoming an example of what the future of the world can be, only if it is able to balance its local cultural heritage with the curiosity to open up to the new, to other cultures, to international visions capable of ensuring its propensity for improvement, adaptation, and mixing. The same mixture that has shaped the Mediterranean as we know it today."
- Stefano Pisani, Mayor of Pollica
3. GOOD PRACTICES: THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE ARE ALREADY HERE
The cities of the future need first and foremost to sustainably feed a growing population, given that 70% of the world's population, which is increasing exponentially, will live in urban areas by 2050. To this, it must be added that natural resources, already scarce, are being exhausted and that each year we run out of annual natural resources to survive earlier and earlier. Those who claim that to satisfy the growing demand for food, we must produce up to 60% more, do not take this fact into account.
Instead, it is clear that we must produce better, waste less, distribute better, innovate, adopt precision methods and, when necessary, use techniques without soil or that allow us to use up to 80% less water. The cities of the future need urgent measures today, to design sustainable scenarios in which access to healthy and wholesome food is guaranteed for people and the planet. Cities where food can express its dimensions of diplomatic leverage, capable of including and bringing together multi-ethnic populations, and therefore able to cope with increasing migration, also due to climate change, co-caused by unsustainable agri-food systems. Cities where food can express its dimension as a pivotal element of circular life systems. Cities that are the bearers of territorial and cultural identity, where food marks the rituals and represents the glue of conviviality, meeting, and relationships. Cities in which, from food and with food, we can increase collective prosperity, the pivot of well-being that goes beyond GDP to unfold its value of balanced wealth, made up of all forms of sustainability, not just economic which only measures a monothematic and partial aspect of wellbeing. In the cities of the future, food represents the
most direct gateway to natural ecosystems.
It is the primary link between humanity and nature and the barometer of the relationship between human beings and the Earth. All this must represent the basis on which to build the cities of the future. Food is the epicenter of the cities of the future and from it derives the mitigation and adaptation to the climate crisis, the most urgent challenge that humanity is facing. In this scenario, Mayors are the first presiders in the implementation of sustainable urban planning and urban
society management policies, starting
with food. The Mayors of the cities of the future, are those who can and must redesign cities today, to accommodate the needs of new generations and build prosperous societies, implementing new models. Mapping examples of local excellence that are emerging in Italy and around the world is crucial to understanding who and how to make territorial regeneration a concrete reality.
