Il difficoltoso percorso del Piano paesaggistico siciliano

In 1999, Sicily, ahead of the regions considered to be in the vanguard in the management of its territory and landscape, had identified the Landscape Plan as the means by which to pursue the protection and preservation of its cultural and natural heritage.The headstrong and judicious intuition, however, was followed by years of lengthy administration and silence. After twenty-one years, the landscape plans for most of the 17 areas identified in the 1999 document were finally adopted and approved. And what is the reaction of those territories which, in the meantime, have undergone quite a few changes over twenty years?The present paper, through the Sicilian case study, wants to shed light on the structure and the implementing devices through which the instrument of the landscape plan could act in the territories concerned. The objective of urban and territorial sustainability, which should tend to strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the cultural and natural heritage, clashes, in fact, with a management of places, often anachronistic, aimed at mere economic growth, land consumption and mass tourism that only on rare occasions promotes cultures and preserves local identities. The reflections that we want to present are, then, an opportunity to analyze in detail the intentions of the Landscape Plan and its implementation in the Sicilian context, and to highlight positivity and shadows.