The proposed project is a continuation and enlargement of the project “Tratturi and the civilization of Transhumance: a cultural and environmental European network”, a project co-financed by Cultura 2000 in 2004-05.
This new project is to be extended to new organizations of other European countries, (beyond France, Italy and Spain which participated in the first project) in order to study the Tratturi network and environmental, historic and cultural aspects of Transhumance civilization.
Also the aim of the project is changing, because it will be demonstrated that the Transhumance continues today to constitute an old civilization that links cross border populations in a common culture.
At last, the object is also different, because the project will carry out the Transhumance European virtual museum, that the first project proposed in a experimental way.

The Transhumance and the “Tratturi” network
For many centuries the territories of “tratturi” – or the “tratturi” network and its surroundings – were the support of sheep-breeding that characterised and indelebly shaped many territories within Mediterranean countries.
Those paths and their related services, exerted a fruitful role of attraction, generating flowering cities and local economies, many of which continue to be active in their regions, above all a never neglected culture.
The “Tratturi”, of different lengths and importance, could be found in France, Italy , Spain and in other European countries, including Balkan countries.
Particularly in Italy and Spain the main network hierarchy collected millions of animals and thousands of workers. In Italy, for example, the hierarchy was structured in: the Regi Tratturi, the main paths which in modern ages reached a width of about 111 mt.; the Tratturelli, the secondary perpendicular arteries connecting the Tratturi, a wideness between 32 and 38 metres, and the Bracci, formed as minor links between 12 and 18 metres wide.
In many cases the territories of transhumance still offer not only ground and breeding products, but also local culture, architecture, biological diversity and great environmental and natural values, standing as great occasion of local sustainable development.
The remarkable characteristics of natural and biological diversity of these green-tracks and the network structure could offer an important contribution to the European ecological network.

Results and benefits of the project
From what has been mentioned above it is clear what the expected results are: the starting of a collaboration, also through informatic supports, among the actors participating to the project, which will permit to set the bases to identify and value the European trattural ways in a cultural and environmental perspective. In particular, the informatic platform and the Transhumance Virtual Museum will be specific results of the project.
The added value of the European co-operation will permit to focus on the cultural values inherited by the long history of the Transhumance civility, and from an environmental point of view, will permit to value the trattural ways in the framework of the European ecological network.
The beneficiaries of the project will be not only the partners participating and directely involved, but expecially the local communities, that will re-discover this patrimony as their own identity and historical memory, able to constitute an element of success also in the economic and social areas.