It is close (a few Km) to the main skiing resorts where the Winter Olympics 2006 have been held, in the Susa valley (Val di Susa). Its main attraction is the Natural Park that bares its name, the Parco Naturale del Gran Bosco di Salbertrand.

In one of my previous lives, I worked in the Natural Park as a ranger for several years. I was holding the ID card number 00001 of the Piemonte's rangers.

The pictures below witness me involved in some activity in the park: they are taken from the N. 1/2 (1991) issue of the magazine Oasis (OASIS -SERGIO MUSUMECI EDITORE  - 11020 Quart (AO) - L.tà Amerique, 99).

The picture shown in this page of the magazine portraits a colleague and myself preparing a trap for capturing a capriolo, and this other one shows us patrolling around. Incidentally, that kind of traps was completely ineffective. We had better success with large fenced rings and nets for capturing (and moving to other parks in the north of Italy) caprioli, camosci and cervi.

Here a few links to have an idea of the natural and cultural (well.....) environment:

http://www.cmavs.it/

http://www.cmavs.it/granbosco.asp

http://www.valduira.com/

http://www.piemondo.it/torinoevalli/valsusa.htm

http://www.parks.it/parco.gran.bosco.salbertrand/index.html

http://www.montagnedoc.it/new/index.php

http://www.altavallesusa.it

Fun in mountains

I became a mountain ranger because I liked a lot the Alps and mountains in general. Here there are a few pictures.

Ecrins1, Ecrins2, Ecrins3, Pointe Noire 1, Pointe Noire 2, Pointe Noire 3.       

TAV (Treni Alta Velocità) in Val di Susa

After many quiet years, people of Val di Susa found again some civil passion and interest to vehemently protest against the project of a new ~50Km tunnel to connect St. Jean-de-Maurienne (Fr) to Venaus (It). This would be the main tunnel to cross the Alps on the fast railways track (TAV) linking Torino to Lyon-Paris. The local population thinks that its ecological impact is unacceptable and the benefits on goods and people fluxes are highly questionable. The arguments in favour of this development are the reduction of the travel time on the axis Torino-Lyon-Paris and (suspiciously introduced in a second time) the reduction of the flux of goods transported by trucks through the Alps. Both arguments are arguable: there is an under-used line through the existing Fréjus tunnel that can be improved by a negligible fraction of the cost of the new mega-tunnel that would operate almost with the same efficiency of the new-line, both for goods or passengers transportation. The reduction of the transport of goods on lorries is, already at present, more a political issue rather than a technical one. The existing Fréjus would be able to cope with a large flux of goods that would probably cancel the need of trucks, provided adequate infrastructures. The improvement of the existing line would also allow faster transit of the trains, with a small difference with the transit time in the new tunnel (the speed of the trains inside the tunnel will probably be much smaller than the 300Km/h of a typical TAV train, due to various technical issues, and could be limited to 150Km/h). But, of coarse, a fraction of the cost and no ecological impact are not viable arguments in the modern world. How can big money slip into the various interested pockets if the original loot is too small? In this occasion the locals have bravely and pacifically protested, occupying the area of the site (in Venaus) where the explorative tunnel is set up to start  preliminary digging. The Italian government answered the only way it knows: using disproportioned violence against civilians, preferably armless. The Italian police distinguished itself by attacking in anti-guerrilla attitude and equipment the demonstrators, including pensioners, old women etc. This scenario has been seen before (Genova, G8). In the same occasion, members of the government have taken the opportunity of saying something stupid, according to their abilities. Ahead of anybody else, the Italian (in)famous prime minister expressed some of his well known intelligent analysis, saying that subversive elements were responsible for the protests (probably assuming, according to his idea of democracy, that everybody in disagreement with  him is subversive). The very opportune presence of a very small number of more aggressive "protesters" has been used as an excuse for the violence of the police (seen before).

Links:

Links to documents about the G8 riots in Genova 2001:

http://italy.indymedia.org/features/genova/

http://www.ilmanifesto.it/g8/versogenova/3b5b0a7a627e9.html

http://www.repubblica.it/online/politica/giotto/giotto/giotto.html

http://www.repubblica.it/dossier/genova/index.html

http://web.peacelink.it/genova/

http://www.veritagiustizia.it/

http://www.lomb.cgil.it/puntof2002/g8amnesty.htm

and many others ..........

Links to documents and forums about the TAV in Val di Susa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treno_Alta_Velocità

http://www.notavtorino.org/

http://www.notav.it/

http://www.girodivite.it/article.php3?id_article=3509

http://www.lunanuova.it/servizi/tav/index.html

and many others .....