Terrazzamenti e ciglionamenti in Friuli Venezia Giulia: solo una testimonianza del "vecchio mondo rurale"?

Although almost an unknown landscape, in Friuli Venezia Giulia Region (Northeastern Italy) terraced areas are a quite widespread landuse, mainly along the coast (near the urban area of Trieste), sometimes on the eastern hills and on the Alpine foothills (Natisone Valley). The way in which they were built, the several material, their di!erent functions (agriculture, breeding, protective) reveal the great diversity of this Region. However, in the last decades the deep changes of the primary sector and the demographic decline in mountain areas caused the neglect of this landscape. At the same time, these conditions promoted an increase of the embankments along the eastern hills for the cultivation of wine. However, while along the coast recently the terraced areas were often recovered, in the Natisone Valley they frequently are only a complex matter. Now terraced areas represent opportunities and risks for their inhabitants, so their preservation is one of the aims of the Rural Development Programs of this Region.