Beni comuni e proprietà collettiva come attori territoriali per lo sviluppo locale

The present research aims to analyse the issue of common property, in order to understand the reasons for the conservation of this ancient type of property. The study firstly focuses on the impact of the common property on the territory and its effects on the local empowerment. Secondly, it analyses the environmental, and socio-economical inputs connected to a wise use of these resources. The common property is a part of the wide and complex issue of common goods and Common-Pool Resources (CPRs). This topic, nowadays, belongs to several disciplines as history, law, economy, environmental studies and geography. Commons can be described as goods and resources differently exploited by the societies in accordance to the places in which they live. We can distinguish three types of commons. "Traditional" common goods are used by a community through consuetudinary law (meadows, grazing, woods, fishing areas etc.). This category of goods is precisely defined as "common property" and it is the main topic of this research work. "Global" common goods, as air, water, forests, biodiversity, oceans, space and non-renewable resources. "New" commons , as culture, highways, Internet, parking and urban green areas, public facilities (water, electricity, means of transport), council houses, health and school systems, rights to security and to peace. The current reflection on common goods, particularly on common property, is influenced by globalization processes and its effects, the crisis of the post-capitalistic model, free trader development model the increase of global disparities and pollution. Actually, small communities as well as many populations in the world - mainly in developing countries - look at the commons as tools to realize a democratic and sustainable territorial management. Lands showing a collective use of the resources are particularly interesting for a geographical analysis of human-environmental relationships, especially of the territorialisation processes. The collective resource management could characterize a territory. Analyzing choices and strategies which are the base of the common property management can be useful also to understand and promote new models of territorial management. In detail, the research concerns the situation of common property in Italy. It is actually represented by three million hectares of land (10% of the total Italian territory), which are organized in collective institutions differently named and mostly present in mountain areas. The three cases of study analyzed in this research are in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region. They are two mountain communities of the Carnia: the local municipality of Ravascletto (in the Valcalda) and Pesariis (in the local municipality of Prato Carnico); and some common properties in the karst area nearby Trieste. These local communities have in common the age-old use of collective lands, nowadays endangered by the changes in the public administration that are conditioning the future perspectives of these territories. The research was developed in three phases: the analysis of the theories and the bibliographical research regarding the commons and common property; the analysis of the situation of common property in Italy (law-making evolution); selection and empirical analysis of the cases of study. The field-work consisted on information and data gathering and ; semi-directive interviews carried out with privileged witnesses (main institutional actors, representatives of local committees and residents). The comparative analysis of the cases of study shows that the actual value of common property doesn't depend only by the conservation of traditional elements. Tradition can assure the conservation of these lands, but common property should now to redefine and invent new meanings, and values.