‘Greening’ Green Infrastructure. Good Italian Practices for Enhancing Green Infrastructure through the Common Agricultural Policy

Stefano Magaudda, Romina D’Ascanio, Serena Muccitelli and Anna Laura Palazzo
Additional contact information
Stefano Magaudda: DICEA, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00184 Rome, Italy
Romina D’Ascanio: Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University, 00184 Rome, Italy
Serena Muccitelli: Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University in Rome, 00184 Rome, Italy
Anna Laura Palazzo: Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University, 00184 Rome, Italy

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-22

Abstract: The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was established by the European Community in the 1950s to provide financial support to farmers in member states, increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress, and ensure a fair standard of living for farmers. Over time; awareness about the externalities of intensive farming would prompt environmentally friendly practices. These include, in the current programming period 2014–2020, the so-called “greening”, which consists of: (i) crop diversification; (ii) the maintenance of permanent grassland surfaces; and (iii) the availability of 5% of arable land for ecological focus areas devoted to agricultural practices beneficial for the climate and the environment. These provisions, spurred by a decades-long debate that also stresses the importance of creating/restoring ecological connectivity on different scales to counter land fragmentation, are in tune with spatial planning initiatives throughout Europe. Here the point is how to combine these directions with either “ecological networks” (EN), designed as physical corridors to be preserved and enhanced for plants and animals’ mobility needs; or “green infrastructure” (GI), defined on the European level as a “strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services” (European Commission; 2013). While in several European countries environmental measures targeting farmers and ecological networks directed at specific areas have been merged in a place-based approach, Italy is lagging behind. In general, no guidelines have been provided on the national level to support regional paths, while regions and municipalities lack the resources to implement GI. Conversely, while greening policies in the framework of the CAP are properly funded, they lack directions to be efficiently allocated. Against the backdrop of such concerns, this paper frames and reflects upon ongoing practices in three pilot areas in different Italian regions, selected based on desk analysis, in-depth interviews, and direct knowledge. Here, despite or thanks to the legislative framework, experimental approaches have been adopted to harness performance issues in targeted areas through broad participation by public and private stakeholders and multilevel governance schemes, opening possible pathways in view of the forthcoming programming period.

Keywords: common agricultural policy; green infrastructure; greening; ecological networks; regional planning; multi-level governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2301/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2301/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:6:p:2301-:d:332910

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().