Protecting Gardesane Lemon Gardens: Conservation and Tourism Development
FINAL DECLARATION
The participants in the roundtable: “What Programs for Gardesane Lemon Gardens?”, held within the framework of the Giallo limone conference on sky, blue water, which took place in Desenzano del Garda on October 20, 2001, acknowledged the exceptional quality of the Gardesane cultural landscape.
Considering the uniqueness of this system of cultivation and architecture; taking into account the current state of degradation of many of these structures and the imminent risk of their disappearance or severe alteration through improper and inadequate reconversions.
Tourism Potential and Protection of Lemon Gardens
Recognizing the high potential to attract quality tourism that the lemon gardens could offer if properly restored and enhanced.
THEY urge the competent authorities: municipal, provincial, and regional administrations, the Comunità Montana Parco Alto Garda Bresciano, the Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici for the provinces of Brescia, Cremona, and Mantova, the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, and the Ministry of the Environment and Land Protection, to undertake urgent initiatives for the protection, preservation, and valorization of the Gardesane lemon gardens.
In particular, they call for the promotion and funding of a sectoral plan for the lemon gardens aimed at defining regulatory tools, developing exemplary projects, establishing guidelines and intervention and management criteria, and creating an Ecomuseum dedicated to the landscape of these lemon gardens.
Commitments and Actions to Be Taken
THEY commit, within their competence and according to their possibilities:
– to keep alive the attention on the Gardesane lemon gardens through meetings, events, exhibitions, and writings aimed at encouraging such interventions, including involving other public and private entities and associations;
– to prepare the necessary documentation to include this landscape among the Heritage at Risk list compiled by ICOMOS or in the World Monuments List of 100 Most Endangered Sites compiled annually by the World Monuments Fund, and to explore the possibility of reporting it to the relevant authorities for inclusion in UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
