Protecting Biodiversity through Sustainable Redevelopment of Urban Medieval Gardens in Italy: an ATTER Case Study with Lucia Nicastro

Event details

Lucia Nicastro, an Early Stage Researcher on ATTER secondment from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, Italy, will present a Community of Practice, based in the Italian town of Ostuni, that is working towards the sustainable re-development of the Ostuni medieval urban gardens that were abandoned in the 1970’s. Before its abandonment, the land had been cultivated for centuries, with farmers building a complex terraced system irrigated through a network of slopes and collection tanks. Some of the cisterns used were former Messapian tombs from the 5th-4th centuries BC. Now, indigenous varieties, some of which would otherwise be extinct, are being cultivated using organic methods. Due to these and other unique factors, the Community of Practice’s goal is to make the gardens an example of best practice for the agroecological transition of the area. The Community of Practice is therefore an initiative of the Agroecological Transitions for Territorial Food Systems (ATTER) project’s Alto Salento case study, the characteristics of which will also be presented.

Biography

Lucia Nicastro is an Early Stage Researcher at CIHEAM Bari in Italy. She is originally from the USA where she worked for the US government and learned about organic agriculture and permaculture. She has a Bachelor’s in Agricultural Business from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Master’s in Gastronomy from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, where she got involved in the Slow Food movement. Aside from her ATTER secondments, she is currently working on three Horizon research projects, Grass Ceiling, MSCAdvocacy, and OT4EU. Grass Ceiling is one of the first three projects in the EU to focus on gender in agriculture, and OT4EU is centred around organic agriculture transitions. MSCAdvocacy is focused on increasing researcher mobility.

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