From Mining to Forest: Environmental Legacies and Sustainable Regeneration in Alpine Territories. The Valsesia Case Study

Post-industrial transformations of Alpine territories represent a crucial challenge for understanding the evolutionary dynamics and sustainable regeneration prospects. This study analyses the relationships between extractive activities, forest management, and territorial transformations in Valsesia, contributing to the debate on post-industrial Alpine territorial regeneration through the identification of specific forms of environmental legacy. The research employs an innovative methodological approach, integrating diachronic data from exceptional historical sources, particularly the 1759 Topographic Map of the Sesia Valley, with contemporary forest data from the 2016 Piedmont Forest Map. The analysis highlights how historical mining activities generated a specific form of environmental legacy that permanently reconfigured forest management through three transformation levels: regulatory-normative, physical-productive, and territorial. Results show the transition from 10,884 forest hectares censused in 1759 to 48,792 hectares in 2016, with significant qualitative transformations from the predominance of beech (49.60%) oriented toward charcoal production for foundries, to the current prevalence of chestnut groves (36.47%) inserted in more articulated but fragmented supply chains. The study demonstrates that mountain post-industrial processes do not follow urban models of abandonment and reuse but rather generate systemic transformations that persist through functional reconfigurations of semi-natural environments. The research contributes to the international scientific debate by providing a replicable methodological framework for the diachronic analysis of Alpine territorial transformations and identifying an unprecedented category of post-industrial legacy that extends its impact beyond abandoned physical structures alone, toward the permanent reconfiguration of territorial systems.