[{"content":" About us # Melemarze ETS is a non-profit organization founded in 2024 in Gagliano Aterno (Abruzzo, Italy), a small village in a depopulated rural area on the Appennini Mountains. The organization aims to support long-term habitability and social cohesion in marginal territories through regenerative, community-based approaches that address primary needs such as housing, food, relationships, economic and environmental sustainability.\nMelemarze works at the intersection of non-formal education, grassroots community development and ecological sustainability, with specific expertise in bio-construction, food sovereignty, land regeneration, participatory processes and group facilitation. Its activities are strongly rooted in the local context, while being connected to national networks and emerging European collaborations.\nBylaws # You can find the association\u0026rsquo;s bylaws, signed on May 9th 2024, by clicking HERE — currently available in Italian only.\nContact # Write to us with information, requests or proposals — we\u0026rsquo;ll get back to you as soon as possible.\nLeave this field blank if you're human: Name Email Phone Message Send ","date":"August 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/about/","section":"About us","summary":"","title":"About us","type":"about"},{"content":"","date":"August 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/","section":"Melemarze","summary":"","title":"Melemarze","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"August 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/projects/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Projects","type":"projects"},{"content":"Below the village, downhill from the Librice spring, lies an area known as the Cannavine. Some say the name comes from the common reed (canna) that grows there naturally; others say it comes from the hemp (canapa) once historically grown in the area. Either way, thanks to its many springs, the Cannavine has for as long as anyone can remember been Gagliano\u0026rsquo;s favourite spot for growing vegetables. From the Librice spring, a system of sluices and channels let water flow downhill to irrigate all the fields below. The abundance of water and the favourable slope were a stroke of luck for the village: many families could support themselves by growing vegetables, in some cases even selling produce at markets in neighbouring villages.\nThe village\u0026rsquo;s slow depopulation over the last sixty years has transformed the surrounding land just as much as its social and urban fabric. The forest has closed back over the upland pastures and now reaches right up to the village. The same has happened to some of the arable fields downhill, along with the farm tracks that once connected them. Some springs, left unmaintained, have dried up or fallen into serious disrepair. The Cannavine too — a \u0026ldquo;paradise\u0026rdquo; in villagers\u0026rsquo; memories — has suffered a similar fate. Alongside gardens that are still cultivated, there are today just as many abandoned ones, where brambles are paving the way for the forest to move back in.\nGrowing a vegetable garden is a lot of work, but it\u0026rsquo;s also a privilege in terms of learning and contact with the land that many people living in urban areas don\u0026rsquo;t have. It\u0026rsquo;s also, and above all, an opportunity for self-sufficiency: growing and preserving your own food without harmful chemicals helps both your physical wellbeing and your wallet! After getting the blessing of the landowners or former tenants, over the years — with essential help from our neighboring gardeners — we worked to clear and bring back into cultivation an abandoned area of the Cannavine. Today there are two newly reclaimed gardens here, which serve as a space for experimenting with growing techniques and a source of subsistence for some of the village\u0026rsquo;s new residents. They\u0026rsquo;re community gardens in the sense that the people who work them share tools, knowledge, and a helping hand whenever it\u0026rsquo;s needed.\nToday, one of the two fields down at the Cannavine is also home to our apple tree nursery, along with a small experimental plot dedicated to growing seed from two evolutionary wheat populations and the Saragolla wheat variety, which could be of interest for larger-scale production in this area in the future. We also have another small tree nursery (figs, apples, almonds and walnuts) and a nursery for aromatic plants at the guesthouse. So far we\u0026rsquo;ve given these away to individuals for their gardens or to the community, restoring and planting public flowerbeds around the village. The idea is to build up a collection of mother plants from which we can keep propagating new seedlings for new flowerbeds!\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not all sunshine and roses, though. In our work at the Cannavine we\u0026rsquo;ve run into a fair share of difficulties, the biggest being, without a doubt, the heavy presence of wildlife. Porcupines, badgers, wild boar and deer visit our garden on a regular basis. The damage is now too much, and we\u0026rsquo;re having to set ourselves up with a fence. Fencing a vegetable garden is costly but doable — for someone who makes a living from farming and has hectares of arable land, it\u0026rsquo;s next to impossible. Wildlife is a very hot topic around here. On one hand, there\u0026rsquo;s the romantic image of \u0026ldquo;untouched\u0026rdquo; nature, a kind of Bambi\u0026rsquo;s paradise, dear to weekend hikers. On the other, there are the struggles of residents who have a historical, direct, everyday relationship with the land, and whose livelihoods are being seriously threatened by the imbalance caused by the uncontrolled growth of wild boar and deer populations.\nA confusing jumble of top-down policies occasionally changes the rules of the game and, in a short space of time, transforms the land: what kind of farming or livestock rearing will receive subsidies? Will controlled killing of wildlife be allowed or not? What form of tourism and business development will get funding? These are questions that all too often get answered without involving local communities or doing any proper, integrated planning across the different factors that shape this land. We lose the chance to reflect together on what we actually need, and to try to respond in innovative ways to the challenges we face. It\u0026rsquo;s complex work, and one we\u0026rsquo;d like to try to contribute to more structurally one day. In the meantime we do what we can, we keep sowing seeds and propagating plants and trees, for new gardens and new flowerbeds.\n","date":"August 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/projects/orti-vivai-aiuole/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Vegetable Gardens, Nurseries and Flowerbeds","type":"projects"},{"content":"Melemarze\u0026rsquo;s first project began with rotten apples. The apple trees of the Subequana Valley tell a deep story about this land. Many are large, old trees, often abandoned, recognizable by their dry or unpruned branches, the brambles climbing their trunks, and the wild vegetation surrounding them. These lands were once widely cultivated: people planted fruit trees and cared for them. Today, after decades of depopulation and neglect, many of these trees no longer bear fruit. Others, fortunately, still do, and for some of us they provide enough apples to last the whole winter.\nWe are grateful to those who planted these trees, which still sustain us today, but we know these gifts won\u0026rsquo;t last forever. If we want this landscape to remain livable for us and for future generations, we need to make sure life here stays possible. Planting new fruit trees is a small but important part of that work.\nAt the founding members\u0026rsquo; first meeting, in the fall of 2022, we gathered fallen, rotten apples from several trees around the area. We crushed them into a pulp and left it to ferment.\nWe then scattered the pulp and seeds, along with some almonds, into a raised bed, covering them with soil. The following spring, hundreds of seedlings sprouted, each with a stem as thin as a strand of spaghetti. A year later, we gave away around fifty almond saplings, so that these fast-growing, deep-rooted plants could be planted out as soon as possible. The young apple seedlings, meanwhile, were transplanted into temporary beds with more room to grow.\nThree years on, the young apple trees now have trunks roughly a centimeter thick and are ready to be grafted. We\u0026rsquo;ll graft them with local varieties, as well as some non-native varieties we think could adapt well to this area as the climate changes. It will probably be another year or two before the trees are planted in their final positions, and several more before we see the first fruit.\nThis apple tree project reminds us that improving the livability of a place like this takes patience. The results of this kind of work aren\u0026rsquo;t immediate. Projects like this depend on years of careful observation of the landscape (which trees grow well here? which no longer bear fruit, and why? where could we plant a new orchard?), as much as on the gradual development of human relationships (which apple varieties do local people value? what recipes exist? who has experience growing apples, and what difficulties do they face? how can we build the infrastructure to support apple production and processing?).\nYet the motivation to keep this project going is simple: just picture a future full of apple pies, baked apples, apple juice and cider!\nThis project also reflects our association\u0026rsquo;s broader approach, and it\u0026rsquo;s where our name, Melemarze, comes from. We start from the resources already present in a place — in this case the mele marce, the rotten apples fallen from the area\u0026rsquo;s old trees — and use them as a starting point to create something new. Onto these roots we graft a marza: a new branch, a scion, that carries fresh energy, knowledge and new perspectives. Our name plays on this: mele marce (rotten apples) and marza (scion) merge into Melemarze. The result is a tree that belongs to both the past and the present at once: rootstock shaped by decades of life in this landscape, joined with a new variety suited to today\u0026rsquo;s physical and social conditions.\n","date":"March 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/projects/mele/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Apples","type":"projects"},{"content":"Gagliano Aterno is a small mountain village still in the process of recovering from the 2009 L\u0026rsquo;Aquila earthquake, which damaged much of its physical infrastructure and worsened a trend of depopulation that had already been underway for decades. As a result, access to spaces for living, socializing, craft and culture remains severely limited. In this context, unused public buildings are a vital resource for the community and an opportunity to welcome new people, support stable forms of residency, and foster projects of collective value.\nMelemarze managed the transition phase and proposed the participatory process that led to the founding of the Foresteria Bene Comune (literally, the \u0026ldquo;Common Good Guesthouse\u0026rdquo;), a publicly owned, non-profit, collectively managed guesthouse. Once an unused building, it has been restored and furnished to offer accommodation on a pay-what-you-can basis. It also has three cellar rooms, used as extra spaces for gatherings and community initiatives.\nDefined as a \u0026ldquo;common good\u0026rdquo; — a shared resource oriented towards collective well being — the guesthouse only hosts people and projects that directly contribute to the physical and cultural life of the area. Since it opened, it has welcomed artisans, researchers, artists, professionals and new residents who have developed initiatives in line with the area\u0026rsquo;s needs and shared values.\nThe space is cared for and managed by the Foresteria Bene Comune Assembly, made up of the Municipality of Gagliano Aterno, local associations like us, and individual citizens who signed the Collaboration Pact (\u0026ldquo;Patto di Collaborazione\u0026rdquo;) that sets out the values and goals of this project.\nYou can find the \u0026ldquo;Patto di Collaborazione\u0026rdquo; (in Italian) signed on June 15th 2026, clicking HERE\n","date":"March 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/projects/foresterie/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Guesthouse","type":"projects"},{"content":"As of today, August 2026, the majority of Melemarze\u0026rsquo;s members are under ten years old. In 2024, the association founded a summer camp designed to help meet the need for childcare services in the Subequana Valley, and at the same time create local job opportunities. We work with the sponsoring municipalities to secure financial support for families and keep the service as accessible as possible. At the same time, we make sure the camp\u0026rsquo;s educators receive fair pay for the quality work that they do.\nGagliano Aterno thus becomes a kind of scattered campus for the duration of the summer camp, where children can explore different environments and have varied experiences. Its base is the sheltered playground in the center of the village and the nearby former Convent of Santa Chiara, where the old rooms of the Poor Clare nuns have been turned into spaces dedicated to the camp\u0026rsquo;s summer activities.\nParticipants often visit the Simon Tanner bookstore, a local nonprofit with a rich collection of rare and second-hand books and a welcoming garden shaded by fruit trees. Every week they also visit the village bakery, where they make pizza and pastries using a wood-fired oven and locally grown ingredients.\nThey also go to the climbing wall, accompanied by experienced instructors who teach proper technique and ensure a safe environment. They explore the nature around the village, harvesting wild herbs and fruit — like mint to make sun tea, or blackberries to make jam.\nMany activities focus on artistic expression, using natural and reclaimed materials for painting, drawing and building. Children also learn craft skills, such as weaving and using a sewing machine.\nOur goal is for them to feel that Gagliano, however depopulated and quiet it may seem, is actually a fun, beautiful place to live in or spend time — one that offers real opportunities to discover passions, build skills and make friends.\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/projects/centro-estivo/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Summer Camp","type":"projects"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/en/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"}]