Community Regeneration Lab in Ostana and the High Po River Valley

Regenerating Relationships in Ostana

Ostana is a small revived mountain village in the Italian Alps. After decades of depopulation, people are returning, visitors are coming, new initiatives are emerging, and the village is becoming active again. This is hopeful — but it also creates a new challenge.

How can a small Alpine community bring together traditional farming, new residents, second-home owners, visitors, education, regenerative tourism, renewable energy, biodiversity, land-use change, and local economic development without fragmentation?

The MonViso Institute has been working on this question for more than ten years.

MVI has hosted university student groups, international field courses, mobility experiments, choice experiments, social network analysis, visual dialogue formats, regenerative practices, and intercultural learning activities in Ostana and the surrounding valley and bioregion. These activities have not remained theoretical. They have been tested on the ground through real projects: electric and integrated mobility, cycling-based learning journeys, photovoltaic integration, a passive net-positive house, hemp cultivation, agroforestry plots, Paulownia trees intercropped with blueberries and red and black currants, ecological repair zones protected from cows, dialogue with farmers, and practical experiments with electric tools and bio-based materials.

This proposal builds on that existing record.

The next step is to make these activities more constantly embedded, more locally and regionally visible, and more useful for the wider community. We illustrate that regeneration is not only about asking people to reduce, stop, or sacrifice. It needs to be mostly about creating attractive new economic possibilities.

For local people, this is essential. A mountain community cannot be transformed only through critique. It needs living examples of a different economy.

This project will create a continuous set of visible "regenerative model activities" in Ostana. They will connect land use, tourism, education, energy, mobility, and community dialogue into practical formats that local people, second-home owners, visitors, farmers, and students can experience together.

1. Regenerative Land Use and New Mountain Livelihoods

MVI already works with experimental land-use change: Paulownia trees, blueberry and currant intercropping, hemp, agroforestry, pollinator habitats, and ecological repair zones. These are not presented as a single solution. They are practical examples for a larger conversation: What could mountain land use become under climate change?

In many Alpine areas, traditional cow grazing remains culturally important, but it also creates challenges around soil compaction, eutrophication, water protection, vegetation recovery, quiet recreation, and biodiversity. Instead of creating conflict with farmers, MVI wants to open a constructive dialogue around complementary land-use models.

Could some areas shift toward overlapping and layered agroforestry, berries, hemp, bees, sheep, goats, pollinator habitats, repair zones, and educational landscapes? Could students and visitors help with fencing, protection zones, or seasonal land care? Could local farmers benefit from new markets through educational groups, pre-orders, tourism products, and local storytelling?

The goal is not to say "less farming." The goal is to show how a more diversified mountain economy can work.

2. Regenerative Tourism as a Real Economic Alternative

MVI has for years hosted university groups and learning journeys in Ostana. Through Systemic Cycles and field-based learning, visitors do not simply consume the landscape. They move slowly, by bicycle or on foot, meet local actors, learn from the valley, participate in practical activities, and contribute to the place.

This project will help turn these experiences into clearer local offerings: regenerative tourism formats that bring value to local actors while respecting the mountain community.

This may include small guided learning cycles, community walks, land-use dialogues, food and craft encounters, biodiversity learning, and collaborative activities with actors such as Viso A Viso, the Centro Polifunzionale, Bosco Incantato, farmers, local producers, and other initiatives.

The key idea is simple: tourism can be more than "quickly in, quickly out." It can become a way to support local livelihoods, education, ecological care, and meaningful exchange.

3. Renewable Energy, Mobility, and Adaptive Building Culture

Ostana can become a model for renewable energy production and use in mountain villages. MVI has already worked on photovoltaic integration, electric mobility, e-bikes, an electric shuttle, electric land-care tools, and a passive net-positive building.

The next step is to make these examples more visible, consciously interconnected, and discussed with the community: How can a village produce and use more of its own renewable energy? How can electric mobility reduce dependence on fossil-fuel cars? How can building culture respect local identity while adapting to the realities of climate change, energy transition, and new forms of living?

This is not about rejecting tradition. It is about keeping tradition alive by allowing it to evolve.

What Ma Earth Funding Would Enable

With Ma Earth co-funding, MVI would organize a focused season of local integration activities that connect the above work into visible and accessible formats to become a continuum "lab" installation.

The funding would support:

• 8–12 local stakeholder conversations with farmers, residents, second-home owners, local initiatives, youth, tourism actors, and public representatives
• Two public community lab sessions during important village gathering moments, when local people, second-home owners, and visitors are present
• One practical regenerative land-use action, such as a protected ecological repair zone, pollinator habitat, cow-water access improvement, agroforestry/intercropping signage, or small restoration intervention
• One regenerative tourism pilot activity, such as a Systemic Cycles route, community walk, or learning journey involving local actors
• One youth or intergenerational education activity around bees, hemp, berries, trees, food, soil, or energy
• One simple visual map showing local regenerative initiatives and possible connections
• Photo and video documentation and a short bilingual story report in Italian and English

The larger goal is to help Ostana see itself not only as a beautiful revived village, but as an Alpine community lab for a different economy: one based on renewable energy, regenerative land use, meaningful tourism, local food, ecological learning, and cooperation.

Ma Earth support would help us move from many successful individual experiments toward a more shared local model.