From the Charter of the Messina Strait to the Observatory of the Strait Landscape: a Proposal

The paper is an abstract of the NOSTRA Action Plan of Policy Measures for a good governance at EU level of the Messina 's Strait. The landscape of the Strait of Messina is the first essential element of unity between the two coasts of Reggio and Messina and the assessment of its values would become one of the key strategies to promote economic, social and cultural development of this area as well as its planning. It is a landscape that looks like a compendium of the categories listed by the European Landscape Convention and this is the reason to recall it in the proposed document to set goals and launch of new possible actions for active conservation of the landscape. The "Charter of the Strait of Messina" - formulated in occasion of "Landscape 150" conference celebrating the hundred and fifty years of Italian unity - is the result of this shared reflection about new forms of aware and proactive protection of landscape. The Charter involves also the development of a landscape observatory as a tool to implement the contents of the Strait of Messina Charter that means to focus on the involvement of local communities to enhance the culture of legality, knowledge and awareness. By the way, the proposal is to create an Observatory of the Strait Landscape which, acting locally, can effectively carry out activities such as: description and status monitoring of the landscape, communication, education, awareness and citizen participation; but at the same time, through networking with other observers (Observation Network of the Strait of Europe, of the regional monitoring networks, national and international, local) it can be developed through an effective and detailed collaboration.