Phase 1: understanding the local context

A solid understanding of local social issues should guide the design of a sustainable development plan and its projects. The “understanding” phase includes identifying the social area of influence—the people potentially affected by the project, including the “communities of place” and “communities of interest” (Vanclay et al 2015). For place-based interventions, this is typically the people living near the development site. Rather than being a political process, establishing the appropriate boundaries around this area of influence requires identifying the conditions conducive to development (Barca 2009). Understanding a project's biophysical, social, and institutional context helps clarify the specific needs and social development goals for an appropriate intervention, and helps decision-makers comprehend the “place” of the intervention (Slootweg et al 2001).

In this phase, SIA helps identify and conceptualize specific local biophysical and social change processes (eg demographic, economic, geographical, and sociocultural processes; see Vanclay 2002) that result from past regional development projects or from any related higher-order changes or impacts that may influence local community perspectives on development or their levels of trust. A demographic trends analysis helps to understand the structure and dynamics of the local population and its demographic and social change processes. A landscape analysis helps identify natural and cultural heritage resources and their state of conservation by contributing an understanding of the influence of past social change processes on the patterns of land use, for example urbanization and coastalization (see Vanclay 2002).

Another key action during this phase is assessing the vulnerabilities and related social risks affecting the project site and surrounding communities, including those associated with or likely to be exacerbated by disasters. Reference to regional and national demographic trends can help identify these. Typically, a regional development project needs to be framed within the regional social perspective and in terms of broader national and international strategies for sustainable development. Data collected during this phase help clarify and contextualize the specific area to be included in the process; the most relevant social issues associated with the policy, plan, or project being evaluated; and the social development goals. This can improve the design of local development projects.

For the Tratturo Magno project, the social area of influence was identified as being the 10 rural municipalities in the L'Aquila mountain area that are traversed by the Tratturo Magno and the Regio Tratturo Cinturelli-Montesecco. The demographic trends analysis revealed population decline, aging, and outmigration as of the 1950s as having had a large influence on population structure and dynamics. Our field research and the secondary data we considered indicated that accountability associated with past rural development actions, most of which have been abandoned, was poor. This legacy has negatively influenced local trust and attitudes towards future development projects. The risks and vulnerabilities of the local area, which primarily relate to regional decline (OECD 2013), were much affected by the 2009 earthquake, especially because subsequent recovery and reconstruction activities were undertaken in a hasty and ill-considered way (Alexander 2010, 2013; Imperiale and Vanclay 2016).

The landscape analysis revealed underdeveloped potential relating to local natural and cultural heritage. For example, project activities led to the detection of fortified settlements from the Iron Age (10th to 5th centuries BC), historic shepherds' refuges (Figure 4), and historic milestone markers along the Tratturo Magno. The landscape analysis also revealed that most cultural heritage along the path was overgrown or in disrepair. A geographic information system was used to georeference any identified heritage resources. This process supported the participatory visualization and community mapping processes during the “engaging” phase, which helped facilitate a shared vision of local cultural and natural heritage resources.

FIGURE 4 

An ancient shepherds' refuge. (Photo by Angelo J. Imperiale)

Reference to international policies and the academic literature on sustainable mountain development (Price and Kim 1999; Price 2009; Barkin 2010, 2012; Gurung et al 2012; FAO 2011) as well as to the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (Barca et al 2014) helped the Tratturo Magno project management team clarify the community development goals that needed to be reached together with “restoring the path” and “promoting rural tourism.” The identified community development goals were (and will continue to be) reviewed over time according to new international policy guidelines that emerge(d) during the life of the project. For example, “building the resilience of socioeconomic and ecological systems, including through economic diversification and sustainable management of natural resources” (UNFCCC, COP 2015: 25) and “handing back to local communities the management of and access to local resources” (Barca et al 2014: 42) were added as key community development goals. These goals were subsequently redefined and better contextualized in discussions with local key actors, stakeholders, and other members of the public in subsequent phases of the SIA Framework for Action.

The research steps undertaken during the “understanding” phase contributed to knowledge of the social area of influence and of local stakeholders. This helped the project management team clarify the community development goals, identify potential social risks and vulnerabilities that might undermine the project, and identify ways to mitigate them.

Key local actors and stakeholders were identified by various means. They included people living and working along the Tratturo Magno who could be directly affected by the proposed actions—especially local entrepreneurs who cater to visitors hiking the Tratturo Magno. For each of the 10 municipalities involved in the project, 1 local nongovernmental organization (NGO) was selected by analyzing local NGOs' activities through social networks and through field discussions with local people in each village. The NGOs were selected using the criteria of (1) the likelihood of the NGO developing social activities compatible with the Tratturo Magno project and (2) the representativeness and legitimacy of the NGO with the wider population. Often, the local Pro Loco group was selected. The mayors of the municipalities were also considered to be key stakeholders.

Phase 2: recognizing local concerns and capacities

The “recognizing” phase involves predicting, analyzing, and assessing the likely impacts of the proposed intervention and helps development agencies refine their proposals to better address local needs and perceptions and to recognize resilient capacities (Esteves and Barclay 2011; Esteves et al 2013). In the Tratturo Magno project, the first step in this phase was informing key actors and stakeholders about the proposed intervention. By interviewing local entrepreneurs and members of local community groups, this became a listening process that recorded people's perspectives and reflections about the main problems in the area and people's capacity to address them.

Between September and December 2014, interviews were undertaken with 55 local business people and 10 representatives of local community groups who had been selected during the “understanding” phase. Representatives of all businesses located on the Tratturo Magno were also interviewed. A survey used with local entrepreneurs provided information about the Tratturo Magno project and asked the entrepreneurs about the nature of their businesses, their problems and needs, and what they could do to contribute to the success of the project.

The survey used with local NGOs requested an account of their goals and activities, especially in relation to any local cultural events that could be supported or promoted by the Tratturo Magno project. It also requested information about the natural and cultural heritage in the region the NGOs considered to be significant, as well as about their perceptions of the main issues in implementing sustainable development in the region. Following completion of the survey, in-depth interviews were conducted to gain a better understanding of these issues and to collect anecdotes related to the traditional use of the Tratturo Magno.

Semistructured interviews were conducted with the mayors of the 10 municipalities traversed by the paths. They were asked about how institutional support for the Tratturo Magno project might be gained, and about any cumulative impacts that might arise from other planned interventions in the region.

This process of listening was crucial to recognize and acknowledge local perceptions of past and future development interventions—and to identify and acknowledge local knowledge and abilities, which were then used to enrich the planned intervention. Interviews with the mayors helped to clarify the local institutional perspective and identify additional interventions that had the potential to influence the project. For example, a badly planned highway and the construction of the TransAdriatic Pipeline emerged as key threats to the Tratturo Magno project.

The problems and needs mentioned by participants included poor management of local natural and cultural resources, low levels of awareness of these resources, a lack of tourist information, poor public governance of local development interventions, lack of transparency, limited opportunities for public participation, unfairness in development policies, lack of cooperation among local entrepreneurs, and limited local expertise in place branding and marketing. The social and cultural polarization between urban and rural areas was also mentioned, especially by local NGOs. There was also a general feeling of marginalization and exclusion from the main development policies influencing transformation within Italy.

To be as inclusive as possible, the “recognizing” process has to identify all the subgroups in the local communities, especially the most marginalized and vulnerable. For example, in sustainable mountain development, although attention is often given to tourism, it is also crucial to recognize and empower the role of local shepherds in maintaining and preserving the landscape, to minimize the risk that the tourism industry (which is often externally owned) might displace rather than sustain local livelihoods.

In the Tratturo Magno project, to take the role of shepherds into account, with the help of the provincial Animal Health Service we identified 21 local farmers. They were grazing 5368 sheep, 255 beef cows, 248 dairy cows, and 36 goats, with an estimated annual production value of over € 1 million. Implementing integrated strategies that would promote rural tourism in a way that strengthens the primary sector of the local economy is vital in the L'Aquila mountain area and elsewhere.

Phase 3: engaging local communities

The “engaging” phase supports the development of mitigation and social development strategies and helps development agencies achieve social development outcomes, such as enhanced community resilience. The “engaging” phase is effective when it promotes positive collective feelings such as empathy, solidarity, social responsibility, and a sense of public duty. In resilient communities, these feelings motivate people to work together towards addressing common problems and finding shared solutions (Imperiale and Vanclay 2016). The “engaging” phase helps develop these feelings through publicly discussing individual concerns registered during the “recognizing” phase. This process helps local communities to progress from the mere collection of individual complaints into a community vision about common problems, common potentialities, and shared solutions, and it helps build a social environment of cooperation and mutual aid around these issues. Overall, the engaging process helps strengthen the social feelings and interactions that underlie community resilience and collective trust, and assists local communities in identifying the shared measures they need to implement in order to mitigate negative social impacts and maximize the social benefits likely to derive from the planned intervention.

In the Tratturo Magno project, this phase comprised 3 participatory field visits, 4 public meetings, and 3 cultural events undertaken between January and July 2015. An open invitation to these events was extended to all local residents and the broader interested public. The events were designed to identify potential ways to mitigate the problems and needs identified during the previous phase, such as poor awareness of the local natural and cultural heritage, lack of cooperation and trust, lack of a shared vision for future development, and social marginalization.

The main objectives of these activities were building a community vision of shared problems and strategies, increasing awareness of local cultural and natural heritage, building local capacities, and promoting greater use of local resources. Publicly discussing the “understanding” and “recognizing” phases through focus groups and public meetings helped the local communities discuss and reflect on the perceived common problems and needs. Collectively visualizing the data about natural and cultural heritage resources that were gathered during the “understanding” phase, as well as the engagement of local experts and the participatory nature of field inspections, helped local communities understand existing vulnerabilities and underdeveloped potential.

Through the use of an online reflection tool, this process also helped local entrepreneurs develop a formal network agreement (Contratto di Rete, described below) by explicating the conditions necessary for their social and cultural sustainability (Mercer 2002; Murphy 2012) and in the determination of the social impacts and expected benefits of rural tourism (see UNESCO 2010, 2012; McCombes et al 2015).

The reflection tool was a precursor to the “empowering” phase and to the building of the network agreement. It required local entrepreneurs to reflect on the criteria for social sustainability and consider how these criteria could be achieved and respected in their partnership in the future. It encouraged them to consider the likely impacts (both positive and negative) that the development of tourism might have on the daily lives of local people (ie their habits, health, business, and culture) and on the area in which they live (ie the environment, community life, cultural heritage, and economy). Mass tourism did not yet exist in the area, and participants' responses revealed that they considered benefits much more likely than negative impacts. The reflection tool helped develop the necessary awareness to ensure the sustainable management of the partnership and of tourism development, and raised local awareness of the likely negative impacts of poorly managed tourism development.

The “engaging” phase gained institutional support for the Tratturo Magno project from some local municipalities. For example, one municipality contributed to restoring public access to a portion of the Tratturo Magno that had been inaccessible for over a decade. The process fostered additional local actions that enhanced the project's outcomes. For example, one local NGO, using its own resources, engaged a local carpenter to improve tourist signage along the Tratturo Magno (Figure 5). These actions helped build a broad community vision that focused attention on common problems, shared solutions, and a shared perspective on sustainable development. This process gained formal legitimacy with the development of a collective agreement established in the final phase.

FIGURE 5 

Members of a local community group erecting handmade wooden signs outside the mountain village of San Demetrio Ne' Vestini on the Tratturo Magno path. The village mayor is second from left. The shorter post displays a QR code to access information about the site. (Photo by Angelo J. Imperiale)

Phase 4: empowering socially sustainable transformations

The “empowering” phase places SIA monitoring programs and tools in the hands of local communities and strengthens their collective sense of social responsibility and commitment to maintain project outcomes. It also helps establish collective agreements to create legitimacy, build deliberative spaces, and facilitate deliberativeness in order to enhance social development around the shared vision developed during the previous phases. The development of community agreements offers an improved approach to sustainable rural development by “balancing the costs of projects with desired community benefits; incorporating local knowledge and concerns; feeding back and responding to information about ongoing impacts; defining the local community's economic participation in the development; and securing the significance continuing involvement of communities in determining their futures relative to the development process” (Nish and Bice 2011: 59).

To be as inclusive as possible, agreements must be established among local entrepreneurs, as well as between local entrepreneurs and local municipalities and NGOs. The “empowering” phase helps development agencies and local communities codesign and implement monitoring strategies by providing tools to collectively evaluate the social sustainability of the transformations evoked by current and future development actions. Because of the ecological fragility of mountain areas, having mandatory commitments to protect and respect natural and cultural heritage in the local action plans of these collective agreements is crucial to enhance the resilience of local people and the area as a whole.

For the Tratturo Magno project, the “empowering” phase consisted of 10 group discussions with local entrepreneurs, conducted between July and September 2015. These discussions were held to ensure that an effective network agreement between them could be reached, one that reflected their desires and priorities and acknowledged their fears and concerns. The network agreement thus reached also consolidated the commitment of the local entrepreneurs to maintain the Tratturo Magno project outcomes, especially in relation to the need to better manage the restored path and local cultural and natural heritage. These discussions, which were continued in the fourth phase of the SIA Framework for Action, resulted in the creation of a legal entity, the network agreement Landscapes in Transhumance.

Aspects of the community vision developed during the “engaging” phase were carried forward in a sustainable mountain development project proposed by Landscapes in Transhumance called Vestini Transhumance Route: Building an Ecomuseum in the L'Aquila Mountain Province. An ecomuseum can be understood as a philosophy, an approach, and the expression of the commitment of local communities to value their local heritage (Maggi and Falletti 2000; Perella et al 2010). Ecomuseums celebrate the natural and cultural heritage of specific regions, and can be considered as both a community-based museum and a museum-oriented community (Davis 2011). They are characterized by their embeddedness within their regional communities and are often described as museums without walls (Vanclay et al 2008; Davis 2011).

One of the project's expected outcomes is increased social and territorial cohesion and a more proactive role for local communities in natural and cultural heritage management. Through participatory design and implementation, the ecomuseum project aims to strengthen local environmental and cultural education by enhancing knowledge of local resources and providing opportunities for universities and research centers to carry out fieldwork in the region in order to promote a culture of sustainability and sustainable mountain development.

Landscape in Transhumance plans to develop an Impacts and Benefits Agreement (specifying the expected impacts and benefits of the project) and a Social Impact Management Plan (which identifies strategies to mitigate potential negative impacts and maximize community benefits) (Franks and Vanclay 2013). These tools will use data obtained during the “recognizing” and “engaging” phases and will be revised periodically. Including these documents in agreements with development agencies and local governments will help make local people's voices fully heard, improve transparency, mitigate the risk of planned interventions being captured by the self-interest of local elites, and orient decision-makers toward effective ways to build community resilience.