GIOVANNI FONTANA ANTONELLI

A Laboratory of Ideas for the safeguarding of the landscape of Battir, District of Bethlehem, Palestine

Closed terraces in the Wadi Makhrour Valley (Photo by Federico Busonero).

Current aerial photography of Battir territory (Photo Battir Landscape Plan) The wrong side and the right side Battir is a Palestinian village situated on the line that, from 1948 on, divides the West Bank from Israel. The integrity of its historical and archaeological landscape characterized by cultivated terraces and ancient irrigation systems, still in use, is being threatened. A Landscape Plan becomes the strategic tool to preserve both the places and the human rights. Par Giovanni Fontana Antonelli The historical landscape of Battir consists of irrigated gardens and orchards adjacent to the urban core and, as one moves away from the urban core, of tiny fields mostly cultivated with olives, vines and almond trees. Dry-stone walls recessed in terraces that follow the local topography protect each parcel. The historical landscape of Battir is also and above all a social and symbolic location. The terraced basin that extend from the natural spring called « Ain al-Balad » (source of the village) is known as « Al-Jinan », which in Arabic means “The Gardens of Paradise”. The Battir Landscape Plan, first-of-its-kind in the Middle East, arises precisely from the necessity of protecting this precious asset, masterpiece of building techniques and hydraulic engineering, passing it on to future generations, in a Mediterranean region where the violence of conflicts and the perverted logics deriving from it prevail over the

existence of the inhabitants to the point of upsetting the primary aspects of life.

The Battir Landscape Plan as a means of defence of territory and human rights The initiative for the safeguarding of the lanscape of Battir relies on the inventory of Palestinian cultural heritage sites initiated in 2004 by the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism in cooperation with UNESCO. .

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Following the identification of this area as a significant sample for the study of landscape and its inclusion in the list of main cultural heritage sites in Palestine for a future inscription on the World Heritage List; an agreement was reached on the elaboration of a knowledge system, a tool for territorial development and management, given the lack of an adequate legislation, the absence of urban management tools as well as of other than customary practices. « We begin by reading the places. Our planning is tentative; meaning that it does not pretend to provide unequivocal solutions but tries to confront the project site with a chain of assumptions able to reveal its substance and to open up the process of its transformation. »1 The reference to De Carlo is important for two of the fundamental aspects of the work in Battir. The first one concerns the in-depth reading of the signs imprinted throughout the centuries on the territory, the understanding of the permanencies and the transformations of the landscape.2 The second one concerns “the tentative planning», which, in the particular case of the Battir experience, took the characteristic of a “permanent laboratory of ideas”

One of the terraced areas concerned by the trespassing of the Israeli separation barrier (photo by Lino Barone/Claudio Zagalia). Interior of the « Ain Al-Balad » spring (Photo Lino Barone/Claudio Zagalia)

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Centre: Two historical photos of the Al-Jinan area (Garden of Paradise) of Battir, the first is a view of the irrigated terraces in1892, the second is a overhead view of 1926 (Photos of the Palestine Exploration Fund) Bottom of page: sequences of the elaborations of the ground surveys and digitalisation of data produced by the workgroup or the Battir Landscape Plan

Sequences of the elaborations of the ground surveys and digitalisation of data produced by the workgroup or the Battir Landscape Plan.

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a farmer in his garden of the Al-Jinan area (photo by Lino Barone/Claudio Zagaglia) Starting from 2005 in fact, a series of activities took place, primarily to read the historical archaeological and contemporary landscape, secondly to build good practices in the field of landscape preservation. Research focused first on the dynamics of re-naturalization of the abandoned terraces, then on the traditional practices concerning the construction and restoration of the dry-stone walls and the use of water resources. The landscape survey and its cartographic restitution engaged a multidisciplinary team of young local technicians for almost a year. The cartographic production enabled the restitution of the identity of the sites through data-recovery of the lost or erased toponymy. The definition of Land Units, based primarily on the different kinds of terraces, nourished the drafting of a normative framework of guidelines for an appropriate management of the territory according to the above-mentioned units. Participatory actions were then conducted with institutions, local citizens and farmers, with a particular focus on the perception of the

landscape, for example the revitalization of the local Popular Participation Committees. The creation of the first Landscape Ecomuseum3 of the Middle East contributed to the organization of tourist itineraries and the reconstruction of territorial structures and infrastructures, to the requalification of the abandoned zones and the improvement of the contaminated dumpsites areas, to quality food production and small-scale reforestation works on uncultivated lands as preventive measures against land confiscation. Awareness campaigns on environment for young people, the promotion of cultural and artistic activities linked to the territory, the organization on in-residence courses by local and European universities on subjects linked to common space, human rights and landscape transformation issues, the coordination of guided tours for journalists, diplomatic and European parliamentary delegations have become integral parts of the project.

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Project Fiche

Fiche de project

Project Protection Plan, management and valorisation of Battir landscape

Nicola Perugini, Planning policy and relations with the local community

Location Battir (Parts of Beit Jala and Husan territories), District of Bethlehem, Palestine

Ordering Institutions ————————————— Chronology ————————————— Extension of the Project

Municipality of Battir and UNESCO Ramallah Office (Funding from Norwegian Government) —————————— 2008-2012 ——————————- 12 Km2

Landscape Experts Giovanni Fontana Antonelli/ Coordination of the plan, vocational trainings and participation

Cost of the Project 150 000 USD

Other experts and consultants

Lino Barone/Landscape planning Claudia Cancellotti and Patrizia Cirino/ Anthropology of Landscape, Francesco Cini/ Geology and hydrology

Awards and recognitions ————————————— Management and Maintenance

2011: Melina Mercouri International Prize for the safeguarding and management of cultural landscapes ———————————— Landscape Eco museum of Battir

Collaborators Samir Harb, and Mohammed Hammash/ territorial analysis, GIS Hassan Muamer / territorial engineering and territorial analyisis

Visitors opportunities Management and Maintenance

Yes (possibilities of local guides)

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Land use Map of the Battir Landscape Plan. Finally, one must emphasize the importance of the support to the legal action taken against the separation barrier, the advocacy planning so dear to De Carlo. This process of “tentative planning” is in progress, as embedded by the implementation of pilot projects for landscape recovery. It is not a linear process but rather an empirical and irregular path, although virtuous. The objectives grow clearer each time they lead on to action, whether strictly linked to the discipline involved with landscape or complementary.

For the first time, in Palestine, the issues related to Landscape Conservation produced tangible results on the judicial and political front ; Landscape has become a cardinal pointr for the defence of the inhabitants of Battir and its neighbouring areas; it made sense in a human rights advocacy context. Will the small stone walls, made of million stones skilfully piled up, generation after generation, manage to stop the great concrete wall ready to destroy the harmony of the Paradise Garden?

Foot notes: 1 Giancarlo De Carlo, Franco Buncuga, « Conversations with Giancarlo De Carlo, Architecture and Liberty», Eleuthera, Milan 2000, Page 118 2 See this point in Pasquale Barone, Claudio Zagalia, « Landscapeʼs permanencies and transformations in the Bethlehem area »in Goffredo Serrini, Giovanni Fontana Antonelli and Claudio Zagalia (2012) « Bethlehem area conservation and Management Plan. The Plan as an Alphabet, UNESCO Publishing, Paris 2012, Pages 107-125 3 The Landscape Eco Museum of Battir has been financed by Italian Cooperation,as part of its Palestinian Municipalities Support Program (PSMP)

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Translation from Italian to English by Catherine Legna “les Cafés-carto”

Here above: Olive trees, vineyards and ploughed fields in the Wadi Mahrour valley floor (Photo by Federico Busonero)