-- Magredi Magredi
are an element of landscape that characterizes the
natural areas of the high plains of FRIULI .They are part
of the impressive glacial phenomenons that tookplace in
the last million years in our Alps and alpine foothills.
At the end of each cold phase ,the abundant fluvial
glacial waters descended towards the plains with
extraordinary energy.They were fed by the melting
enormous glacial caps during periods of temperature
increases. Their ability of erosion was so strong as to
allow the movement of large quantity of heavy, rocky and
unrefined materials which were pulled away from the
bottom of the steep slopes into the narrow alpine valleys
causing them to deepen even more.
These materials were left scattered and fanned out in
shapes of cones at the bottom of the mountains. At the
exit of the valleys,towards the plains where the floods
lost most of the energy,permeabling mattresses of
enormous strenght and thickness are made by rocky
fragments shaped as bowls and gravel. They form an almost
continuous stripe between the high and the low
plains.
The conoids of CELLINA-MEDUNA are the main example of
this architecture formed by clusters of debris,that
stretches on the communities of CORDENONS, S.QUIRINO,
VIVARO and up to MANIAGO. It is so impressive to be
visible on a national scale on the satellite photos of
our peninsula as a large off white spot.
MAGREDO
means a poor land.
Poor because it is formed by a cover of wild grasses
and shrubs with few hydric needs fit to live in extremely
saturable and dry soil. It is so eager for water that it
is unable to hold and give back even a small portion of
that generous precipitation to make " FRIULI " popular as
the most rainy region of Italy.
In the high part,this plain is so stingy of water,but
gives back with large generosity,rivulets,streams and
rivers hidden in green vegetation of the lower valley.In
this area of spring waters,the layers of gravel beds
leave their place to the clay. To give an image of a
desolate landscape,we can use a sequence of harsh words
as:poor,dry,rocky,bushes and weeds,but also as
sweet,melancholy,immense and vast. Other effective words
could be:sky,clouds,land,tranquility,open,space and wind.
Humankind always discovers his real dimension in front of
an impressive natural phenomenon.He realizes his limited
knowledge as something that encircles and surrounds
him.
The
Magredo compares with someone who simply tried to walk in
solitude,but especially compared with whom,for
centuries,consumed his existence on this barren land.As
every other thing that belongs to experience,memory and
culture of a nation,will change from real place to a
memory from which their people will never be able to
understand without losing part of their own identity.
The tough woody grasses and shrubs attacked the rocky
river beds with the same stubbornness as when the people
of FRIULI plowed their dry land of the high plains,
starting all over again and rolling up their sleeves
after every disaster as earthquakes and floods. The
grasses blocked the beds with tangled roots along the
edges of the iverbed spared by the violence of the
floods.The vegetation strengthened with the years and
benefited from the reddish frail thickness of the land
she helped develop with huge perseverance. The poor and
humble look of these dry prairies cannot deceive,since it
is here in these"Magredi" that we find a treasure of
species in the highest of natural panorama of ITALY.Only
this should be sufficient to justify the urgent
intervention to guarantee the future of these precious
barren lands and to change them into biogenetic
reserves.Just as a bank where we can preserve this
extraordinary inheritance of biodiversity that is
ours.
The whole history and culture of the people who lived in
this land is tied to the nature of these rocky lands.
Their homes were built with simple material gathered
along the river reflecting almost a connection between
the frugal, firm style of life of these people and the
clean and essential shape of the rocks, of the river bed,
they used for their construction.
Grapes were grown in between the rocks, herds grazed,
scented forage was gathered during the hay harvest
months.
The Magredi represent one of the last examples of a
typical landscape of a steppe. It is so wide and unique
at peninsular level and certainly the last one in
Northern Italy. Some of the herbs are so rare and limited
to certain areas that the disappearance of portions of
the Magredi would cause their loss.
The
unusual bush of the Crambe tataria, shows itself here and
there during the spring in between the nice and colorful
blooms of Ginestrelle,Timo, the endemic Mattiola and
numerous wild orchids of elaborate color and fanciful
shapes. The Magredi of Pordenone are in Italy the only
station of Crambe tataria, an original plant known for
its looks, name and history. They say it was
involuntarily imported around the year 1000, during the
invasion of the Hungarians. They might have introduced it
from the far away Hungarian puszta by seeds attached to
their horses shoes. The Crambe tataria, when done
blooming in the late Spring, dries up, her dry bushes
roll away at the winds mercy and distribute all the seeds
on the sunny prairie land. This happens also in the
hungarian puszta and in the dry steppes of the Central
America deserts where other herbs grow in the same way.
With the same sense of freedom, the branches of Salici
move into the wind. The golden sea of the Stipa pennata
or Fairytale grass waves and large birds of prey fly in
the sky. Poiane, Gheppi and Albanelle hunt numerous prey
that they can easily spot in the large open spaces.
Together with the eagles that descend from the near by
mountains circling overhead in precise manner against the
blue sky, they are the last guardians of the Magredi.
Their high flight and their acute screams seem to be a
dramatic warning towards the modern man and his eager
civilization to defend this last natural stronghold that
originally belonged to them.
Stefano Fabian
FORUM
of the
ASSOCIATIONS
for
the Protection of the " MAGREDI of CELLINA "
in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region - Italy
Cellina
Canion
Cellina
riverbed
Spartium
junceum
Crambe
tataria
Serapias
vomeracea
Daphne
cneorum
Brassica
glabrescens
Area: |
Tipologia del suolo: |
Grado di tutela: |
Comune/i: |
Località: |
Superficie: |
|
Magredi
di |
magredo in varie fasi di crescita, esteso fino alla linea delle risorgive |
Area di reperimento: "Magredi del Cellina",Siti Natura2000, Comunità Europea direttiva 92/43 life |
Cordenons (Pn) |
Cordenons |
ha 757 |
|
Magredi
di |
suolo primitivo a tratti alterato in vicinanza dei torrenti Cellina e Meduna |
Siti Natura2000, Comunità Europea direttiva 92/43 life |
Vivaro, Cordenons (Pn) |
Vivaro |
- |
|
Magredi
di |
lembi di prateria e di suolo alterato in fase di ripresa |
Siti Natura2000, Comunità Europea direttiva 92/43 life |
San Quirino, Montereale Valcellina (Pn) |
San Foca |
- |
|
Magredi
di |
vasti tratti di prateria a sfalcio |
Siti Natura2000, Comunità Europea direttiva 92/43 life |
Maniago, Montereale Valcellina (Pn) |
Dandolo |
ha 546,5 |
|
Magredi
di |
vasti tratti di prateria, magredi evoluti |
- |
Campoformido (Ud) |
Rivolto |
- |
|
Magredi
di |
prati stabili, magredi evoluti |
- |
Pasian di Prato e Martignacco (Ud) |
- |
- |
|
Magredi
di |
lembi di prati stabili, magredi evoluti |
- |
Remanzacco |
- |
- |
|
Environment in danger |
Stop the Italian Baja |
|
SITE MAP
: |
Magredi,
ours prairie |
the
racing circuit on the protected
area |