COLORE
Countryside and Landscape: Opportunities for Renewable Energies

Rural areas are among the weakest parts of the EU, according to economic parameters such as GDP, employment rate, etc., even when they store a big deal of immaterial and material resources. Even if main ‘mobile’ resources, such as financial capital and upper level management, look mainly at cities as place of investment, they also tend to invest for leisure in rural areas. This project addresses thus the need of:
a) integrating environmental protection with development planning;
b) introducing appropriate approaches to the cultural heritage;
c) implementing renewable energy policies in periurban and rural areas.
This project intends to achieve these results developing “innovative pilot projects” in the partners’ regions.

Overall objective of the project is to promote “active ruralship” in rural and periurban areas. This has to be done thanks to the implementation of a number of innovative pilote projects in each partner territory.

Specific objectives of this project will thus be:

• Comparing and integrating different governance styles and technologies used by the project partners.
• Developing methodological guidelines useful in helping policy makers, professionals, institutions and stakeholders in integrating the planning instruments with environmental protection, landscape and renewable energy resources management policies.
• Developing pilot projects in the different partners’ territories that face the local environmental-rural issues.

COLORE has involved the following partners

Provincia di Rieti (Italy) – Lead partner
Mancomunidad Alto Jarama (Spain)
Diadyma S.A. (Western Macedonia - Greece)
Provincia di Ragusa (Italy)
Comune di Novi Ligure (Italy)

Meetings

Kick off meeting: 16th/17th November 2006, Kozani (Greece)
Presentation of the partners, their cases and specific situations
Discussion on how to work

Second meeting: 24th/25th April 2007, Alto Jarama (Spain)
Discussion of the first report, the ongoing and following work

Final meeting: 19th/20th November 2007, Rieti (Italy)
Presentation and discussion of the final results

Outputs

A new concept for the development of rural areas has been proposed by the project: ACTIVE RURALSHIP. Its basic idea is to identify those forces and productive development trends that can stir up the inertia of rural territories. The project developed proposals helping to:
a) integrate environmental protection with development planning;
b) introduce appropriate approaches to cultural heritage;
c) implement renewable energy policies in periurban and rural areas.
The multidisciplinary approach contributed to develop theories on agriculture, local economy, tourism, energy, local cultural heritage, etc.; it could produce interesting development scenarios for the local economy of the study areas, not only to contribute to European policies, but also in favour of the rural areas looking for a better balance with the development of the urban and peri-urban zones.

http://www.colore-esdp.eu/