<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Civic Network of South Tyrol

Welcome to South Tyrol

Nature

horseA healthy natural environment is a source of strength for us all. From it stems the obligation to pass on to future generations an intact natural and cultural landscape. This responsibility represents a special challenge for policy which South Tyrol has met in many different ways.
Great importance is attached in South Tyrol to the protection of the countryside and the natural elements by which humankind lives - air, soil, water - as well as animal and plant life. Since the transfer of powers to the Province in regard to protection of the countryside and the environment in the second Autonomy Statute, a number of laws and decrees have been issued which play a prominent role particularly in regard to the protection of nature and the countryside.

Nature and Landscape

At the moment a model landscape for South Tyrol is being prepared as a special plan to be part of the provincial development plan. With it an up-to-date strategic new direction in the protection of the landscape will be taken: fewer passive conservation protection measures, more active integrative nature protection measures. In order to maintain the diversity of our landscape and to protect natural resources in the long term nature protection must be on a broad plan basis so that the use of the land is in accordance with long-term principles. To this end priorities regarding the use and protection of the landscape of our province must be established, classified by altitude and intensity of use together with the use to which it is put (agriculture, forestry, tourism, habitation, etc.). As part of this strategic new direction the powers of the municipalities in the landscape protection sector have been extended. The Provincial Department for Nature and Landscape Protection will therefore concentrate to an increased extent on working out guidelines, on providing advice and specialist help and implementing pilot projects (for example, in the municipalities of Meran/Merano, Gargazon/Gargazone and Welschnofen/Nova Levante) by which the passive Landscape protection plan would become the Landscape development plan and thereby the ecological basis for the Building lead plan.

Besides the integrative start to Landscape protection the strategy for area protection will also be continued. Completion of the Nature Park programme lacks only the Sarntal (Val Sarentino) Nature Park. Seven Nature Parks, covering a total of 123,970 hectares, corresponding to 17 per cent of the area of the Province, are legally protected. The Nature Park Riesenferngruppe (Vedrette di Ries-Aurina) has been extended to Ahrntal (Valle Aurina) up to the National Park Hohe Tauern so that together with the National Park Hohe Tauern the biggest alpine nature protection area could be established. Also in the area of the Stilfserjoch (Passo dello Stelvio) National Park the new model for administration is beginning to take hold: an office in Glurns (Glorenza) keeps people in touch with developments, the Provincial forestry department has taken over supervision of the National Park area and a series of practical measures for achieving the aims of the National Park have been taken in hand.

In 1999, 106 of the Province's 116 municipalities had a legally binding plan for the countryside whereby, depending on the typology of the countryside and settlement, between five and thirty per cent of the respective municipal area has been placed under special protection.
Province-wide, 173 habitats (mostly wet areas) of an area of 2,456 hectares and 1,061 natural monuments (particular trees, waterfalls, mountain lakes, amongst others) are protected in 2001. For the Viles settlement areas of the Ladin Gadertal (Val Badia) there are landscape protection plans. Close to nature cultivation of species-rich marginal lawn, mountain pastures, lark meadows, hay and wet meadows is supported by landscape care bonuses.
This initiative should be further developed in close co-operation with agriculture into a comprehensive cultural landscape programme designed to ensure along with the maintenance of an unspoilt nature also an attractive cultural landscape in the long term.

Environment

If there is one leading concept in regard to modern environment policy today it is that development must be sustained. Ecological, economic and social development are inseparable.
Sustainable development links together economic development and social welfare with on-going protection of our living-conditions. We therefore need increased integrated environmental protection instead of merely patching up the environment. Environmental education and public relations play a decisive role thereto and begin already in childhood.
With the Provincial Agency for Environmental and Work Protection an independent control, research and counselling body was set up in May 1996. Decisive steps were taken in regard to rubbish disposal and water protection both in providing facilities and in public relations in order to develop an environmentally responsible behaviour on the part of the population. Thanks to the new Executive Measures GVD 463/1999 the responsibilities of the Province regarding the sector of public water have been extended. The Province is now in possession of the former state-owned rivers Etsch, Eisack and Drau.

Prevention has the highest priority in regard to South Tyrol's water policy. Earlier policy was about protecting people from water. Today the most important task is to protect water for and from people. One of the most urgent matters in the environmental policy of the Province involves therefore the protection and security of quality water and in particular the construction of sewage treatment plants and main drains. In recent years the construction of the still lacking sewage treatment plants and main drains has been rapidly pushed ahead. The aim is to raise the proportion of purified water to 100 per cent. Big investments will be taken up in the coming years above all by the construction of main drains so that all localities can be connected to sewage treatment plants.

Quality water protection has the highest priority in the environmental policy of the Province of South Tyrol. That is shown not only be the considerable expenditure provided for the construction of sewage plants and main drains.
The future of an up-to-date water protection lies, however, in prevention - not least because of costs. The technical re-treatment of environmental problems must increasingly make room for a quality environmental protection: not first pollute and then take countermeasures but from the beginning avoid pollution of any kind is the watchword. The work of the provincial administration is therefore strongly oriented towards preventive measures in order to obtain better water quality.

natureparkRefuse policy is a key element in "sustainable development". Refuse management should approach the ideal of an economy of recycling. This relieves the environment and enhances the raw materials. The refuse management policy of the Province pursues in the main two aims: the disposal and renewal as well as the a priori avoidance of refuse. This brings the need on the one hand for efficient environmental protection facilities and on the other hand for increased efforts to make producers and users aware of the problems. To learn the responsible dealing with the refuse since the early age several projects were started in nursery and elementary schools in 1998.

South Tyrol's refuse management policy has been a considerable success: in 2000, a total of 80 disposal facilities were available. The priority is to reduce the refuse mountain. The efforts of the provincial government will therefore increasingly be aimed in the future towards practical refuse avoidance measures. In 2000, the project "Ex novo" started in order to show the consumers possibilities to reduce or avoid the refuses (Reparation or renting of objects, utilisation of used objects, etc.).