La gestione delle risorse naturali nell’Antropocene. Il caso del fiume Seveso nell’area metropolitana milanese

Abstract

In the last twenty years, local administrations, national and supranational governments have favored the use of governance tools in order to stimulate citizens' participation in the management of natural resources, through the enhancement and inclusion of civil society in decision-making processes. However, it is well documented that these projects also have negative results for the communities and that they are often conceived, implemented and evaluated by teams of experts and agencies external to local contexts. Some scholars argue that these forms of participatory governance actually represent mechanisms useful for managing today's socio-environmental in- sustainability. The main objective of these 'devices' would be the attempt to manage the undesirable effects of ecological alterations as long as possible, without changing the socio-ecological relationships that have produced the current un-sustainable scenarios (Bluehdorn, 2011; 2014). The objective of this contribution is to analyze the conflict / consensus dynamics that have occurred in the last 15 years in the management of the 'Seveso river contract' and related environmental issues, also in a broad perspective of territorial planning and natural resources management, in an era of global ecological crisis. The research is oriented along the theoretical lines of political ecology and post-ecology and it is part of the broad debate concerning the relationship between ecology and democracy.