Mines of ITALY: a heritage to protect and enhance
The National Network of Parks and Mining Museums (ReMi) was created within the EXPO 2015 in Milan, and coordinated by ISPRA with the collaboration of AIPAI (National Association for Archaeological Industrial Heritage). ReMi has as main objective to enhance the disused national mining heritage and propose solutions to the regulatory problem of safety, reconversion and enhancement of sites, in cooperation with the Regions and Local Authorities. The Ministry of Economic Development, the Lombardy Region, the ANIM (National Association of Mining Engineers) and CNG (National Council of Geologists) as well as most of the most important mining parks and museums operating in Italy immediately joint the ReMi initiative. To date, ReMi is formed by a network of 56 members and 75 mining sites. ReMi is a tool for comparing and developing all organizations that are responsible of the management of reconverted, or under reconversion, mining assets and public institutions.
The national context
Italy has the longest documented mining history and preserves a vast and original geomineral heritage; Italy represents as well, at world level, one of the places where the culture and mining art has mostly developed. The Italian mining history originates among the first Italic populations. After the pause of the Roman Empire that acquired minerals from its distant provinces, the mining activity started againg in the Middle Age. In the mid-14th century, the first Mining Code, still adopted in many countries of the wold, was published in Massa Marittima (Tuscany). The heritage of over twenty-eight centuries of mining activity along the peninsula, constitutes a valuable scientific, anthropological and historical-cultural patrimony, with significant informative and tourist potentialities not yet fully appreciated. Mining sites represent the typical synthesis of industrial, archaeological, cultural, historical and landscape heritage around which social aggregations and communities have developed and caused the essential conditions for economic and social growth.
The abandoned Italian mining heritage, that represents for the country a great economic and cultural opportunity and resource, has been either neglected or unexploited for several decades. Many mining sites are now lost; in some cases they have been dismantled to obtain scrap iron or left to decay, making them unusable, while others have been reclaimed to deal with environmental emergencies.
In this context, ISPRA promotes the National Network of Parks and Mining Museums with the aim of connecting and promoting the institutions operating in the promotion of the national abandoned mining heritage.
The Network is open to new subscriptions, with no cost, for all those operating in this sector ( Follow this link) To join the ReMI go to Ispra
