Study site description: Rendina, Italy

Table of Contents

1. Responsible IP partner
2. General information
3. Bio-physical description
4. Land use management and degradation processes
5. Socio-economic description
6. Institutional and political setting
7. Relevant end-users / stakeholder groups (at all levels)
8. Past and on-going projects
9. References
10. Annex: Soil characteristics of the Rendina Basin

Relevant end-users / stakeholder groups (at all levels)

The first and major users involved in natural resource management and desertification are the Regione Basilicata, in particular the regional agency ALSIA, Consorzio di bonifica del Vulture e Alto Bradano (CBV) and the Autorità di Bacino del Fiume Ofanto, which coincide with the Autorità di Bacino della Puglia(AbP). The first two showed an immediate interest in our project. They are our main two stakeholders at watershed scale.

• ALSIA (Agenzia Lucana di Sviluppo e di Innovazione in Agricoltura) - Department of services for agricultural development , Experimental Farm GAUDIANO, SS.93 Km 44.5 GAUDIANO (PZ). Email: azienda.gaudiano@alsia.it; Website: http://www.alsia.it. ALSIA is main regional agency of the Basilicata Region for the agricultural and food processing system and responsible for extension services and completion of Agrarian Reform. The role of the agency has been established by Regional Law n. 38/96, and integrated by other regional Law: No. 21/98, 61/00 and 29/01.
• Consorzio di Bonifica Vulture - Alto Bradano; Piazza S.M.Assunta - 85020 Gaudiano PZ. E-mail: consorziobonificavab@libero.it. Public consortium. Total surface: 2000 km² (including Rendina Basin). Public institution, established under National Law (regio decreto 13 febbraio 1933 n. 215) to coordinate public intervention and private activities in matter of land reclamation. Competences of the consortium are Hydraulic structures, and Water management for irrigation. The consortium is responsible for the management of the Rendina Dam (Lavello-PZ).

Local technical (agrarian/environmental) schools contacted for dissemination activity (seminars initiated in the 2008) :

• Agrarian and Environmental Professional Insitute. Genzano di Lucania (Potenza) Italy
• Agrarian Technical State Institute Lavello (Potenza) Italy

Land users: there are several local representatives of the national farmer association and farmer's unions working locally to support associated farmers in various aspect related to agricultural development and promotion of local production, technical, legislative, fiscal assistance, EU policy implementation and relationships with National and regional authorities and policies.

Note: We noticed during meetings with farmer's unions (June and September 2007) that the willingness to cooperate was really low: they declared themselves not available for meetings, questionnaires and other time-keeping activities at least until the end of 2007 (Year Of Desertification), claiming that they were already under much too pressure to accept further activities. We decided to leave the problem aside and wait for users to change attitude. In order to achieve some sort of surrogate for the deliverables of the missed meetings we contacted and interviewed a series of farmers in an informal way, sometimes in the field. Only in December 2007 we observed a change of attitude when the presidentof the Associazione dei Giovani Imprenditori Agricoli (AGIA) of Basilicata declared interest in our work. Consequently, we started the organization of a meeting with selected users (February 2008 and November 2008) dedicated to find ways to raise the interest of a larger group of users (including farmers) towards our efforts (workshop realized also with the support of CBV and ALSIA).

The main farmer associations are:

• CIA (Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori): Italian farmer association with 900.000 members at national level and with capillary distribution at local regional scale. Founded in the 1977. Local representative is CIA-BASILICATA; Via Pascoli, 25 , 85024 Lavello http://www.ciabasilicata.org . A branch of CIA is AGIA -Associazione dei Giovani Imprenditori Agricoli (young farmers association; www.agia.it)
• COLDIRETTI (www.coldiretti.it): Italian farmer association at National level and with capillary distribution at local regional scale. Founded in the 1946. Based fundamentally on Christian Catholic principles.
• COPAGRI (Confederazione Produttori Agricoli): farmers's union fonded in the 1990's, that has regional and provincial distribution in Basilicata (http://www.ssabasilicata.it/COPAGRI) .