Assisi-Spoleto olive belt nominated for Unesco heritage

The ambition is to obtain Unesco recognition as a "Living Evolutionary Cultural Landscape". For this reason, the Assisi-Spoleto olive belt, the main Umbrian olive growing area, has been nominated for Unesco heritage.

The official presentation of the candidacy took place in the evocative setting of Pistoletto's "Third Paradise" in the Bosco di San Francesco: a Fai property as well as a highly symbolic place, where everything speaks of nature, environment and products of the earth.

The new objective is set after obtaining, in 2018, two important awards for the olive belt: the registration in the Register of Rural and Historical Landscapes of the Ministry of Agriculture; the qualification as an agricultural system of world importance (so-called giahs site) by the FAO.

During the presentation of the candidacy it was highlighted that the path towards Unesco for the olive belt started from the bottom, "as it represents the request of an entire society, of a region that manages to unite several territories by looking and actions towards the future ".

The area of ​​interest - where there is a great plant and animal biodiversity - extends for about 9 thousand hectares along the ridge located in the basal belt of the Umbrian-Marche Apennines with altitudes between 200 and 600 meters.

In the olive landscape, artistic, cultural, historical and traditional elements referring to that population which for centuries, with the cultivation of the olive tree and the production of oil, have established a profound and indissoluble legal framework are immersed and coexist in balance.