The terraced area over the centuries has reached the maximum area of 2000 hectares, and has affected a coastal strip up to a height of 450-500 meters above sea level, sometimes starting from a few meters from the shore. Despite the vast portions affected by the installation carried out in terraces to the Cinque Terre, the working conditions in which they local farmers were subjected were very hard, partly because of the difficult and often impossibility to mechanization of farm work. The vine, olive and citrus trees, the main crops of the area, with a prevalence of viticulture, were cultivated with the ancient wisdom of centuries ago, with very few changes compared to the technological innovations that have dominated agricultural sectors instead of other areas of Italy.
Questa monumentale opera dell’uomo, che ha modellato la verticalità dei pendii in un numero enorme di piccoli e minuscoli appezzamenti di terra sostenuti ognuno da un muretto a secco, è ad oggi minacciata dall’abbandono. Un sistema come questo, se non viene costantemente tenuto in efficienza e mantenuto, subisce un rapido degrado, spesso irreversibile. Per contrastare questo declino il Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, dal momento della sua fondazione, ha avviato una fitta rete di interventi volti alla tutela e conservazione di questa testimonianza storico-culturale.
This monumental work of man, that has shaped the verticality of slopes in a huge number of small and tiny plots of land each supported by a dry stone wall, is now threatened by abandonment. A system like this, if it is not constantly kept in efficiency and maintained, undergoes rapid degradation, often irreversible. To counteract this decline the Cinque Terre National Park, since its foundation, has launched a network of interventions aimed at the protection and preservation of this historical-cultural witness.
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