Occupy Goes Global!

Trento

In 2020 OCC! expanded its scope and encouraged students to explore local initiatives in their city, resulting in entries from various locations. Here below you find the entries from Trento

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List of experiences: TOTAL RESULTS 2

A valley with no more human animals

By Sormani Daniele

After two days it* left the lair. The storm had passed. Its signs were evident everywhere: the barren ground soaked, almost muddy; traces of hail on the ground; rivulets of water running down the hill. The damage was not extensive, on the contrary: the land was no longer suffering the effects of the torrential half-yearly rains, nor wasting the great resource they constituted. 

The woods were bright green, the colours brought to life by the rain. They had reclaimed the mountainsides, tree by tree, tempering the searing heat that now reigned for so many months of the year.

The rivers had taken back what had been taken from them by force: so many decades of human neglect and maintenance, coupled with the exceptional weather events that had now occurred almost two centuries ago, had caused the rivers to destroy those human-made riverbanks that were too narrow for them. The course of the rivers had changed over the decades, partly renaturalised, but not completely.  The Adige no longer flowed through the centre of the city.  The Fersina no longer flowed straight down, instead sweeping across the plain into the areas where human animals had once slept. Now these dwellings had become the homes of other species: as the forest advanced, birds came to nest, taking advantage of the presence of the watercourse, fish wallowed in the water, preyed upon by some mammals and birds. Some animals used the ruins of human houses for their dens, while others kept their distance as if fearing the sudden return of their now-extinct owners.

After this quick reconnaissance, it* headed for some foods, preferably some nuts, or some of the little fruit that still managed to grow in August, rigorously in the shade of the mountain. It* took the way for what the human animals once called GITAV. As it* walked, it* looked around, saw the mountains reinvigorated by the forests that had taken over the slopes that human animals had once torn up with ski lifts, a kind of transport based on metal rope that connected large bare trees; it* saw other non-human animals adapted to that torrid climate grunting in the woods, fluttering in the treetops, living their lives, unaware and perhaps consciously ignoring how much the human one had been canceled, along all the other species that had not made it. 

The absence of human animals had changed the balance of species: with their disappearance, the cows, pigs, and chickens that had been kept in cages for so many millennia had dwindled to the point of near extinction, partly due to their now genetic weakness and inability to forage for food. Over the decades, those that remained had re-acclimated themselves to the forests, grasslands, mountains and hills, and by now had integrated with the other herbivores. The goats were the first to regain their stolen freedom.

In their place, the more hidden and less meek species had reclaimed their space. The woods were teeming with deer, chamois, and fawns; the riverbanks with beavers and marmots; the burrows of moles could be seen; not to mention the insects, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. Carnivores were beginning to return in large numbers after two centuries of slow repopulation.

They said that in the last decades the major effects of the Little Warm Age were easing, giving some respite to an exhausted Earth. But it* looked around, its eyes on the forests and non-human animals, and wondered who and what was exhausted: the Earth, or human rule over it?

The road to GITAV meandered around the river, then broke off and climbed slightly, then steepened in the last part. In that part of the valley, the beating sun could not penetrate the vegetation, and in the undergrowth there were berries and greedy acorns; where there had once been vineyards, there were now firs and larches, while the fruit trees had remained and even multiplied, given the influx of animals that had gone in search of food and, without perhaps knowing it, had scattered seeds.

GITAV was one of its* favourite places to forage. Collective memory said it had been created by humans two centuries before. The human animal had dug it out with ‘machines’, non-living creatures he controlled at will, made of those strange inedible stones. It had hollowed out one side of the mountain east of Trent, destroying the homes of many non-human animals and even a few humans, sweeping away the trees and undergrowth. 

It was said that the idea was to create a kind of path inside the mountain, through which they would pass another machine, different from the others, in which they would put food and other things that humans used. This never happened. They had started, yes, but then more or less left it at a third, caught off guard by the onset of the Little Warm Age. With its arrival, heavy rains had destroyed the banks of the valley’s rivers and flooded the entire plain. The mountains stripped of trees had failed to hold, and landslides had added to the chaos. The human animal had abandoned the valley after a few years of resistance, finding it too difficult a habitat in which to live. Many other species had come to the same conclusion, including chamois, goats, and bears, followed later by wolves.

Wherever we stopped, it was incredible to hear the discrepancy: first of all, silence. It was said that in the time of the human animal, the most prevalent noise was that of its machines and tools. Now, however, silence could be heard. But as soon as one’s ears got used to it, one realised that it was not silence, but a very wide range of many different sounds, noises, and sounds. The sound of water from rivers and streams, the rustling of leaves, the breaking of twigs in the undergrowth as an animal passed by. And then the grunts, groans, moans, snorts, burps, cries, howls. A cacophony of sounds that together created an incredible harmony. And all this in the light of day, or rather to the ears of those who wanted to listen, who had previously been absorbed and dazed by a multitude of negative, dangerous, frightening, and intrusive auditory stimuli. Which was more or less the same way one remembered humans.

When humans fled, they left all their traces behind. Over time, we reclaimed their impermeable paths: mushrooms were the first to penetrate them with their spores, followed by perennial weeds and then, decades later, by scrubland.

The human dams, very different from those of the beavers, were destroyed by algae and rain, and the streams reclaimed their riverbeds. The quarries, on the other hand, remained as an eternal reminder of the wounds left by the human animal.

Back in GITAV, with their exodus, this path was left unfinished. According to the original plan, the water springs from the mountain would have been plugged once and for all. Over time, however, they had eroded the rock and entered this horizontal hole. The cave that was created was therefore full of water, and as the sun shone on it for many hours, a very strong humidity was created at the entrance, which was then diluted further inland. Plants grew in this habitat that could not grow outside because of the heat. In addition, most animals were afraid to enter the cave because of the high humidity. There was always an abundance of berries and wild fruits and great peace.

Had it not been for the sisterhood of the species, it* would probably have made its* lair there. It* would spend hours there eating, lying down and resting, never leaving. It* would arrive early in the morning, at first light, before the humidity could become too enveloping, and it* would not leave until the sky had turned orange, perhaps streaked with pink or violet. At that point, it* would roll in the grass, scratch itself* against the logs, smell all the essences that had changed since morning. It* runs, it* eats, it* urinates, it* grunts, it* growls. Then it* would slowly make its* way back to his den, to its* own kind, safe from predators.

In the silence of the cave it* had time to think, to let its* imagination run wild, to create futures, pasts, and presents. It* wondered what had become of the human animal. Had it become extinct like so many other species of animals and plants? Had it survived? Where did it live and how did it live?

When it had left the valley, the human animal had gone north, away from this increasingly tropical, increasingly dry and hot climate. At first, it was said, it had climbed higher, aided and abetted by the climate that made the Highlands more habitable, but soon it was gone, unable to live in so small a space and so impervious, used to having the world at its yoke.

Who knows what the North was like, what the climate was like, what the different species were like. Who knows what the North was like 200 years ago, or a few decades later, when the human animal went there in search of a future. Who knows what that future was like.

Who knows what the human animal was like two hundred years ago and now, if it still exists. It was said that it was a predator. The worst of all predators: they said it was predatory even towards its own kind, its peers, its equals. Who knows if it had changed. Who knows if it still lived on violence and pain, or if the collective pain had bent it, transformed it, mutated it. Who knows what interests the human animal had? Who knows if a human animal of today would be like a human animal of two hundred years ago and would want to turn its* cave into a path, or if it would want it to become its cave instead.

These thoughts and reflections were its* own; it* shared them with no one else. Leaving the cave and returning home, it* made no mention of them. Its* secret never revealed, its* treasure not shared.

Next day, same life.

Nutrire Trento

Gaia Maronilli

The experience of the project “Nutrire Trento”

  • Where and whom

Nutrire Trento is a project that takes place in Trento, a small city in the North of Italy. Among Italian cities, Trento has a very good reputation in terms of eco-sustainability, nevertheless, for what concerns the impact of the food system on the territory, there is still a lot to do. Its province is well-known for the production of apples and wine: the territories are dominated by their intensive monocultures, causing loss of biodiversity and fertility of the soil, to this adds the impossibility of food self-sufficiency. Despite that, in the recent years, some farmers have decided to detach themselves from unsustainable mass distribution(“Grande Distribuzione Orgnanizzata”) and the agri-food industry, to embrace an alternative agriculture that can follow the rhythm of nature by diminishing its impact and anthropic action and the use of chemicals. These producers follow the principles of agroecology and biodynamic agriculture. Alongside this trend of eco-transitioning of production, Trento has known a growing request for local, healthy and organic goods that leads to the birth of numerous solidarity purchasing groups (“Gruppi di acquisto solidale”). From the literature, within the trend of then new Sustainable Community Movement Organizations (Dal Gobbo et Forno, 2020), the Alternative Food networks (AFNs) are a wide variety of small or big food supply systems, alternative to the Agro-Industrial one (Forno et Maurano, 2016, p.6), and they can be interpreted as sustainable materialism (Schlosberg, 2019). By contrasting the unfair and unsustainable logics of the industrial agriculture and the big distribution, they try to underline the importance and the specificity of the local dimension from an environmental and social point of view. These realities often try to involve all the actors involved in the process from production to consumption, to waste management (Forno et Maurano, 2016). This approach can be traced back to the glocalism current: from awareness of the global problems, alternative solutions are sought on the basis of the localism principles. If it is true that AFNs have multiple problems, such as the lack of institutionalization that hinders their stability and the possibility of having an effective impact on a major scale, support from institutions can enable them to overcome the problems linked to accessibility and sensibilization to these themes. The new Food Policy Councils can be recalled as examples (Koski et al. 2016), and the following case study of Nutrire Trento can be seen as a peculiar experience within this perspective.

  • Timeline and participants

In this context, Nutrire Trento was born in 2016 by the mutual collaboration of the municipality and the University of Trento with the civil society to find a dialogue among all the actors involved in the food system, to make people aware of its impact, as to create renew conscious habits of production and consumption. 

  • How the initiative engages with climate change

Within this perspective, the interest for climate change, sustainability and the impact of the food system are perceived as a “direct consequence” of being part of Nutrire Trento: the participants see their health and wellbeing as extremely linked to the one of the ecosystem, so that they introduce a political aspect in the pursuit of a wellbeing that might otherwise appear as merely personal. The Food system is recognized as one of the most influencing factors on the environmental degradation and climate change. A critical nutrition then can be one of the first actions to counter the unsustainability and move towards a more ecological model. Nutrire Trento has the value of reuniting positive experiences where local producers have their own philosophy: for example one of the participants talks about “fruit-horticulture” centered on the concept of biodiversity to work in synergy with nature and to diminish the use of chemical products and external inputs. These experiences show how it is possible to pursue alternative ways of production capable of feeding the population without adopting high technological solutions. According to the producers, this engagement is fundamental because “nature itself is rising up”: they testify that there is significantly early entry in production of the fruits, besides extreme weather events which were way more rare once. Against the problem of the vine and apple monocultures, positive experiences like Nutrire Trento can make pressure for converting the fields towards a wider diversification of the cultures.  At the same time, the transition from a conventional agriculture to an organic one is a “fundamental change”. Nevertheless, it will require some time, or at least “ a generational change”, even if the participants claim that there should be stronger commitments from institutions, which, instead, are inside the system and “have their hands tied” for some issues. 

  • Main values and objectives

This project for those who are involved is interpreted as an “incubator of ideas”, a “democratic space” where everyone is free to share initiatives, opportunities and knowledges to reach a shared objective. All the participants underline the role of the institutions, but at the same time, they agree that it is the civic society that makes the discussion table of Nutrire Trento active and stimulating. This table meets monthly and has a variable composition, according to the interest of the issue chosen. They decided to make it informal so that they could easily change what did not work along the process. The only requirement to participate is to live in the territory of the municipality of Trento. After a first phase more theoretical and dialogical, now Nutrire Trento is concretively active. In particular, during the first Lockdown for the Pandemic, Nutrire Trento Phase 2 has begun: a project of delivering local food that connected producers and consumers directly to avoid waste and support the local businesses. After this first pilot, the Community-Supported Agriculture “Naturalmente in Trentino” was created, mostly thanks to the will and desire of the producers who have concretized it.  

Sociality and solidarity are a fundamental part of the project: participants talk about “a big family” and of “a community” who puts aside differences to reach together “the common good”. Sociality is recorded in the act of purchasing and a sense of trust between the produces and the consumers develops. It can be seen as a social network among all the actors implied, where participants join for a word of mouth or for preexisting solidarities (Pilati, 2018). The network is important because it is not only internal but also external and it can connect Nutrire Trento with other similar experiences or expert figures with which debate or innovation might be established. Another fundamental function of the project is the education and sensibilization to a more aware and sustainable production and consumption. The project aims to problematize the issue of food by training through open discussions, but also through concrete practices, as the ones created in occasion of the CSA meetings. Indeed, the table helped participants to better understand certain dynamics and then to change their habits and lifestyle, for example in terms of waste reduction. Something that pushes NT participants to promote education to these themes even at school, to incorporate a habitus of simple sustainable practices from an early age. Furthermore, the direct relationship between producers and consumers – who are called “eaters” within the CSA to avoid the idea of consuming, and the passivity that this term recalls – creates a space for curiosity, information and contact with the products. In this way, they understand what is behind the simple good and they can realize that for example “in April there is no fruit”, in contrast with the false perception the supermarkets give of having everything at every moment in the year, loosing the idea of seasonality.

  • Limits and critical issues

As such, the CSA can be a resource for ecological transitions. It is true, however, that it implies a bigger engagement in terms of both time dedicated, and economic resources: producers are supported in all their activity through a pre-financing so that they have a backup in case of adverse climate or bad harvest. Anyway, by agreeing before with the costumer on the amount needed there is no waste. The criticism is that for the moment being part of a CSA “is not for everyone” because of some hidden cost that hinders the accessibility. In this regard, the support of the institutions has been fundamental: on one side, the municipality has invested but also promoted it, by increasing the range of possible receivers, on the other, the University shared knowledge and scientific resources, facilitating relations among the parties implied. Nevertheless, if this role of guarantee is appreciated,  there is also a sense in which  the council’s involvement implied some rigidity and less democracy. This leads to the political dimension: the decision of being part of Nutrire Trento is recognized as political, but apart from that, what is interesting is that they give more importance to the possibility of creating an alternative, instead of demanding change from existing institutions. 

Finally, coming to the critical points and future challenges of the projects, one recurrent problem that emerges from discussion with participants is the accessibility of this initiative to all citizens. If it is true that from the first data collected of the CSA, participants don’t come necessarily from the world of political consumerism, they have anyway a disposable income and a high level of education: it seems then that there are some entry barriers for some segments of the population. Institution could work to support lower income and fragile subjects, in terms of education and sensibilization to make this opportunity at least known and possible. 

  • Overall assessment and opportunities for replication 

Concerning the spread of this initiative, the external network is fundamental to adapt this paradigm to other territories, starting from their specificities. Anyway, its effectiveness in contrasting the mass retail distribution remains an open question. 

  • Methods

The entry is based on interviews carried out with people involved in the Nutrire Trento table, including producers, consumer-activists and local administrators.

References

Dal Gobbo, A., Forno, F. (2020). Shopping for a Sustainable Future: The Promises of a Collectively Planned Consumption in Forno, F., Weiner, R. R. (edited by), Sustainable Community Movement Organizations: Solidarity Economies and Rhizomatic Practices, Londra: Routledge, 2020, p. 72-88. – ISBN: 9780367342234 

Forno, F., Maurano, S. (2016). Cibo, sostenibilità e territorio. dai sistemi di approvvigionamento alternativi ai food policy councils. Rivista Geografica Italiana. 123. 1-20.

Koski, C., Siddiki, S. et al. (2016) Representation in Collaborative Governance: A case Study of a Food Policy Council. American Review of Public Administration, 48(4) 359-373

Schlosberg, D. (2019): From postmaterialism to sustainable materialism: the environmental politics of practice-based movements, Environmental Politics, DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2019.1587215

Appendix

Image 1 Tasting at the first meeting of the CSA

Image 2  example of “fruit-horticulture”

Image 3 Children at one of the CSA meetings

Image 4 The CSA visits one of the local producers