Re-Naturing the City: Linking Urban Political Ecology and Cultural Ecosystem Services

In the last few decades European industrial cities have experienced major transformations which have implied the need to rethink the role of nature. Re-naturing the city, reconnecting urban planning and nature and enhancing sustainability, means taking into account ecosystems and biodiversity through a social approach to nature which reconsiders nature as a social product and re-examines city–nature relationships, the way Urban Political Ecology (UPE) suggests. This paper focuses on the Brescia Quarry Park, a suburban space that until just a few years ago was characterized by mining activities. This area has now been transformed into a re-naturalized area and is projected to become one of Europe’s largest re-naturalized protected urban areas. These transformations are signs of a profound change in the urban metabolism. In fact, the community has struggled for many years for the recognition of the value of the area in ecological and cultural terms. Therefore, an approach was adopted based on Urban Political Ecology, which is useful to study how the socio–natural relationships change and how an exploited and degraded land can become a relevant natural area from the local community’s point of view. This approach also allowed us to study conflicts due to unequal power relations and strategies developed by the community to reduce these conflicts. Particular interest was given to the participatory processes which have driven these transformations and to the role played by the different actors involved through top-down and bottom-up approaches. So, we decided to combine UPE and participatory action research—PAR and create a participatory map of the Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) in the Park. Attention was given to understanding the practices of the stakeholders and benefits for the community. This involvement allowed us to represent the complexity of the re-naturalized urban landscape which was analyzed through the changes in natural, urban and rural features that emerged. During the process, the interaction between citizens and experts was fundamental in co-producing an analysis of the placemaking of urban landscapes and in revealing the socio–ecological interactions of the stakeholders with these places. The results of the mapping process represent a first step towards promoting sustainable environmental planning and management based on the involvement and empowerment of the local population.