The Initiative
The awareness
raising campaign that our organisation, based in Anversa degli
Abruzzi in the heart of the Parchi d'Abruzzo is conducting, is
aimed at involving the entire population on an important problem:
the abandonment of the mountain habitat and environmental
degradation.
.Stock farmers are more and more alone in the
protection of mountain areas, and the concepts of productivity,
efficiency, and profitability are becoming more important also
in political and operational decisions of our local
administrations.
The safeguard,
protection, and conservation of nature and of the culture that
has led to utilise and enhance it down to our own times and
claims to have established the oldest National Park in Europe as
well as other newer parks and protected areas, is a value that
is increasingly threatened by extinction, as semi-wild
stock-rearing gradually disappears. Few people know and
acknowledge the importance of high quality semi-wild
stock-rearing both for the nutritive value of its products and
for its role in protecting the environment by preventing fires,
protecting the hydrogeology of the land, and guaranteeing
biodiversity.
Our initiative,
"Adopt a sheep and defend nature", is meant to invert this
serious trend, and propose naturalists, environmentalists, and
gourmets, the distance adoption of a sheep, that in exchange of
maintenance and rearing expenses, will yield its fruits (lambs,
milk, cheese, ricotta, wool, manure) as well as protection of
the portion of land it defends together with the rest of the
flock. Stock farms taking part in the initiative guarantee their
products, including biological products, with quality marks, and
among other things offer agritourist accommodation. Therefore
the person adopting the sheep will be able to stay at the chosen
stock farm and periodically follow the farm activities: grazing,
lambing, milking, sharing, and transhumance. All this in full
respect of the animals' needs and habits, as dictated by the
regulations of biological production.
The initiative will be
regulated by a written agreement, in great seriousness,
correctness, and transparency, and everything will be
appropriately recorded, invoiced, and documented with regular
book-keeping according to law.
The advantages
of the initiative "Adopt a sheep and defend nature" to the user
are the following: a saving of over 12% of the market value of
the products obtained, products that are certainly genuine, the
option of using products derived exclusively from the adopted
sheep (at the discretion of the user), since the adoption is
nominal apart from the cheese products that need the milk of a
number of sheep, which would still be guaranteed by being reared
following the same criteria.
Considering the
continuous reduction in the numbers of those who, though heirs
of the millennial knowledge of sheep rearing, that is part of
the pathway of human civilisation, are masters in the skill of
managing domestic animals through the use of environmental
resources without altering them, on the contrary conserving and
enhancing them, we feel obliged to launch this initiative.
Adopt a sheep
Help the
survival of a millennial culture
Protect the
environment
Guarantee the
preservation of transformation techniques that have given our
civilisation that infinite range of cheeses, which together with
sheep rearing are threatened by extinction today
Treat yourself
to the honour of contributing to relaunch such an ancient and
noble trade
Guarantee
yourself a supply of healthy genuine products.
It has been
documented from a number of sources that sheep rearing is the
first link in the chain of environmental balance, that
guarantees the mowing of pastoral essences and therefore the
permanent presence of smaller avifauna, the cultivation of
inaccessible and inhospitable areas, the conservation of poorly
infrastructured land, the continuity of the food cycle for the
conservation of the large carnivores such as the Apennine wolf
and occasionally the bear; the protection of wood fires and an
active garrison also of difficult areas less exposed than others
to the influence of man.
Furthermore, stock rearing, and in
general, country life are closely related to ethical values that
support and materialise the harmonious union between man and the
environment, indispensable opposition to the "technological
culture" that is so popular today.
To lose these ties means
to lose one's identity, to deny history, the origins, the
traditions that have made our civilisation so important.
The
initiative of offering our flocks in adoption is meant to
attract the public interest and attention on problems that are
greatly felt by persons who, like us, perhaps against the
stream, have decided to dedicate their lives to the safeguard of
activities, so noble, though difficult and painful.
Moreover, the
attempt is aimed at bringing together persons who can understand
and feel the environmental and cultural problems of the pastoral
world today, who appreciate its rich values, sensations,
sentiments, material actions, and rural humble gestures.
The
third objective is to offer certified biological products
directly to the public, without expensive intermediaries, and
also to guarantee the consumer the possibility of a direct
control of production and rearing and transformation techniques,
by closely following the process in each of its moments.
The
rearing stages can be controlled from a distance, by e_mail or
by conventional correspondence, and a periodic bulletin with
articles on the important phases of production, the selection of
the reproducers, coupling, milking, shearing, transfer to the
summer mountain grazing fields, litter composting, participation
at fairs, and so on, will be drawn up and sent.
Over the
Internet it will be possible to take active part in the life of
the farm with suggestions, indications, or simply with a request
for information.
The contribution is only an advance capital,
which will be returned with interests, in the form of products.
With an annual
contribution of € 190,00 we will be able to count on a capital
that will help us by anticipating the shelter and feeding
expenses and encourage us in carrying on our activity.
Upon
signing the convention, the "adoptive parent" will establish
whether and how to collect the products, how to assign them, and
how to benefit from them.
Special concessions, discounts or
promotions for all the events and shows related to pastoral life
will be reserved to those who join: the shearing festival in
April - May; the transhumance festival at the end of May -
beginning of June; the guide to the flocks at the summer
mountain pastures on foot or on horseback in mid June; guided
excursions in high altitude pastures in July - September;
thematic evenings on production, pastoral activity, and taste
laboratories, according to a calendar that will be updated every
six months.
Identity
documents are available for each sheep ready for adoption, as
well as an illustration handbook on the project.
To take part
in the project or simply to ask for further information, it will
be sufficient to click on the
contract or contact:
Dr.
Fabio Lofoco,
Project manager, Piazza Roma, 11/A 67030 Anversa degli Abruzzi
Phone and Fax +3984649595 – cellular phone 329/3805852;
E-mail
info@laportadeiparchi.it
