Valleriana, Pescia, Pistoia, Italy

The exercise has been promoted by the local association "Nuova Proloco Valleriana".

The model includes the Middle-age villages called the Ten Castles, surrounded by chestnuts forests. The forests are famous for the quality of their mushrooms, and are characterized by abandoned terraces farmland, a number of abandoned paper mills which were active in the XX century. These are located along the river Pescia. Villages previously inhabited by shepherds, hunters and lumberjacks are now semi-abandoned with the exception of summer weekends when people come back from the city. Many former inhabitants of the valley have moved to other countries. Foreigners are now buying houses in the villages, especially wealthy tourists from Northern Europe, who are charmed by the landscape. Migrants from Eastern Europe are also moving into the villages to work as lumberjacks in the forests . Agriculture is now performed as a hobby, for agro-tourism, or for the production of selected typical local products, like the rare Sorana beans, which are sold at ten times the price of normal beans.