How is a European project born that enhances forest ecosystems and proposes a solution to protect them from climate change?
This is explained by Andrea Rigoni, CEO of the Rigoni d’Asiago company, lead partner of the LIFE VAIA project, which has made the link with the territory and its products the backbone of the famous brand.
“An important cue was the 2017 book ‘The Big Forest’ by Daniele Zovi, which features an appendix by Giustino Mezzalira, Director of the Innovation and Experimentation Sector of Veneto Agricoltura, one of the other partners in the project. The theme of this book is the value of the forest, in particular the forest of the Altopiano di Asiago and the seven municipalities, a fragile ecosystem because it is built with plants of the same species and the result of very close transplanting.” This system, as the book states, is not able to withstand the damage caused by bad weather in the long term.
“These reflections represent the starting point,” Rigoni explains, “for a broader action, which gave rise to the project. It is also from Rigoni di Asiago’s desire, and mine personally,” explains the CEO, “that the will to give an example of how the forest can be reconstituted by creating biodiversity and sustainability was born, not only with reference to wood but also to other forest products.”
“These reflections represent the starting point,” Rigoni explains, “for a broader action, which gave rise to the project. It is also from Rigoni di Asiago’s desire, and mine personally,” explains the CEO, “that the will to give an example of how the forest can be reconstituted by creating biodiversity and sustainability was born, not only with reference to wood but also to other forest products.”
“It is a project in which I am very involved and full of enthusiasm, and I think it will go beyond the five-year deadline for its realisation, because we are going to monitor it for the next 20 years and it will also be a model that we can export to other territories with the intention of creating a new way of enhancing and protecting forest ecosystems.”
