TRACTURO3000 in the world

Transhumance is an ancient treasure of many populations who have been exchanging knowledge, economic rules, commercial trades all over the world thanks to the pastural culture and activities. Today this patrimony seems not to get its right place in contemporary society because of a different idea about time.
Roads and cables still introduce different cultures and new habits, but they are all concerned around direct and quick use of information and natural resources. Shepherds’ time, on the contrary, is a slow time, spent step by step.
A wide bibliography treats the public ways of the flocks  (named in Italy “Tratturi” – Cañadas in Spain etc.) for their historical meanings, but a lot of signs let us think that pasturalism is a living reality, at most in those regions where old shepherds tracked these ways, like in Abruzzo, Molise and Puglia.
Experts and institutions have been developing several projects in these regions during the last 20 years, while young workers involved themselves in new cooperating firms to get more value and quality for local sheep productions (“canestrato”, “ricotta”, and so on).
This increasing interest has been not supported by Public Administration (or not sufficiently), so the heritage of “Tratturi” seems today an heavy pound to carry on, or a touristic logo without any content.
Every positive thought has to fight against growing ruin of this ancient state property.
It is impossible today save the original 111 meters large way to Foggia for Tratturo Magno and the others (there are 5 Tratturi), but it is possible to improve a new vision of “Tratturi”.
Tratturo is not only a grazing surface to be fed: it is also a walking way for everyone and an immaterial good, with its millenary history and its millenary changes, changes proving the lives of peoples there.
A good case- study is according our opinion el Camino de Santiago de Compostela  , along it some experts of our group have been walking for weeks every year. El camino is today an example about the right use of UE funds: more than 1 million of people from every country are going there (for religious reason or not) bringing resources to a rural area very similar to Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia. In Spain El Camino  has become a common development strategy for different regions, often conflicting between themselves, before. This is an example of a possible, repeatable success.

The aim of this project, named Tracturo3000  , is to create a team capable to rescue the post-modern values of the idea Tratturo Magno and Transhumance. At first this idea might seem still linked to a vision of the past, with a little appeal for contemporary people.
We are not on this line. Our approach is just inside the name Tracturo3000 : Tracturo is the medieval word, it means the ancient heritage, 3000 is the direction towards modern times. This connection let us able to read deeply and consciously our landscapes, with a long-ending international view, by original know-how and multi-disciplinary approach.
The scene of this work is the multi-cultural society of southern Italy, growing in the last 10 years with the problems of Mediterranean emigrations. So for us it is important to know, to meet along the walk, other countries where transhumance is still present. 
This long walk is an invitation to think about a changing way of living: our body moves in the environment, religious thoughts and traditions, new rural families, work and production, social divisions. We move through the differences, receiving positive stimulations by them.

Tracturo3000 started his “work in walk” along the way from l’Aquila to Foggia, the longest and the most important “tratturo” in Italy, named Regio Tratturo or Tratturo Magno.

The usual theoretical study is supported by direct recognitions about places and people: the results of these ones help us to modify the initial idea and to verify the new proposals.
According these guidelines we want to cooperate with everyone for a new rural culture.
Each, from  september 29th to  october 7th  our experts use to walk along the 244 kms (and more) of Tratturo Magno to meet authorities and common people living there (shepherds, artists, immigrants, experts…others) to collect ideas, suggestions, approvals. The analysis of living places of real interest, the knowledge of critical points is the first work to do before managing any action.
Earthquake on april 6th did not stop our work in 2009.
The extant bibliography is full of exhaustive cultural and historical studies but is lacking in detailed cartographies, so it has been of no help to locate at first the right way. It was necessary for us to use the maps of the Military Geographical Institute on scale of 1:25.000 that still reported some stretch of the sheep-track, in the editions of the Fifties. in the more indefinite passages we used the town maps on the scale 1:5.000 and 1:10.000 and direct on site investigations. During the journey we use the GPS to digitalize the followed path and to transfer it on the digital cartographies (1:25.000).
The results are inside our first Guide to Tratturo Magno , printed in 2008, with maps, tables and translations in English and Spanish. According our study with the State Forest Staff, the Tratturo Magno is in good state of natural preservation for only 46,65 km out of 243,527 of its length, was altered by cultivations or reafforestation for 1457,63 hectares out of 1930,37, but it is possible to walk all the way along the ancient track from L’Aquila to Foggia.

The Tracturo3000 group has been improving his know-how in several other countries.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES

KENYA – working in the field as Vet (Masai district)
FRANCE – teaching in advanced school for shepherds (Alps)
AUSTRIA – meeting on site about strategy for the development of rural areas (Alps)
FINLAND – reporting daily Lappish life ( Sami region)
SPAIN – finding on the walk the modern meanings of the Caňadas (Castilla-Estremadura)
ALBANIA/KOSSOVO – working for humanitary help in rural areas (Balkans)
MONGOLIA - driving among Mongolian shepherds (clik to see photo)
IRAN – driving along the way of Qasqhoi people (Shiraz – Isfahan) (clik to see photo)