On 2 and 3 August, from dawn to dusk, the municipality of Vastogirardi (Isernia) will host the first edition of the Festival delle Comunità a Misura d’Orso: two days dedicated to the relationship between human beings and nature with a privileged look at the challenges and opportunities that the presence of the Marsican brown bear, one of the symbolic species of the central Apennines, entails for the territory.
Through excursions, role-playing games, debates, theatre, shows, music and workshops for adults and children, an attempt will be made to promote peaceful coexistence with bears, demonstrating how this is a social and cultural process from which no one should feel excluded and which can be encouraged through education and the active involvement of citizens living, together with the bear, in the territory.
Numerous realities will be present for as many activities at a Festival that has decided to make diversity and hospitality its strong points: from local artisans and producers, to the associations and organisations promoting the initiative – Rewilding Apennines, Salviamo l’Orso, Parco Nazionale d’Abruzzo Lazio e Molise, Pro Loco Vastogirardi, Comitato della Comunità a Misura d’Orso Alto Molise di Vastogirardi and the Municipality of Vastogirardi, with the support of Rewilding Europe and LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors – and then illustrators, conservation scientists, actors and musicians who will try to propose new and engaging ways to interpret the complex relationship between the bear and the environment.
The festival is part of the activities promoted by the European project Life Bear-Smart Corridors, which pursues the ambitious goal of growing the culture of man-bear coexistence in the central Apennines in order to favour the expansion of the Marsican brown bear population at risk of extinction, through the replication of the Bear-Sized Community approach – i.e. a community that decides to implement all the good practices allowing a peaceful coexistence with bears as already experimented with great results in Pettorano sul Gizio (L’Aquila) since 2015 with the Bear-Sized Community Genzana. LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors aims to create at least 16 Bear-Smart Communities in as many municipalities, both in protected areas and in the ecological corridors connecting them, as well as in two areas in northern Greece.