Agricultural land abandonment in Italy has led to one of the greatest natural reforestation events since the collapse of the Roman Empire, particularly in disadvantaged areas that have high slope classes and poor soils, or which were difficult to mechanize with 20th century technology. This has led to important gains from an ecological and biodiversity perspective at the larger scale, which are particularly relevant in light of risks posed by climate change. However, it has also led to the loss of a great diversity of local stewardship practices, historically significant landscape features and immaterial culture. The lack of economic incentives at the local level and the distance of more centralized state management entities with sclerotic internal bureaucracies has led in many areas to a “do nothing” approach sometimes called environmental conservation. But conditions on the ground are always more complicated. As the arid prairies of Monti Prenestini shrink with the advancement of young forests, they threaten the rich biodiversity that has developed over centuries in this anthropic landscape, a portion of which is protected by the European Union’s Natura2000 network. But with the decline of grazing practices that gave rise to this element of the landscape, few viable avenues remain even for conservation-driven strategies.

Transitioning a Landscape will employ a first principles approach in order to get to know the environmental history of Monti Prenestini’s arid prairies, and imagine what their future might look like. It will depart from the understanding that land stewardship is an inevitable feature of geographies shaped by millenia of human civilization, and that even “doing nothing” during an age of continental deindustrialization is a loaded attitude in itself. The challenge will investigate the ways in which local communities can be a more active, financially incentivized part of the processes at play in their territory, and the degree to which this can be synergistic with larger national and European policymaking. Most importantly, the challenge will operate from the premise that the landscape is always in motion, and that our cultural identity is closely tied to this process.