Orto in Campus

Discover the Orto in Campus

The Orto in Campus is managed by a group of students, who are taking part to the project. They are managing all the phases: the seeding, the harvest, the monitoring and the study of the plants behaviours.
The video describes the first year of the project.

If you want to be part of the group contact us at the following address  sostenibile@unive.it!

Students participation

Any student enrolled at Ca’ Foscari can take part in the project and be involved in managing the orchard and the garden and in the seminars that will be held in November on synergic horticulture and cultivating endangered species, involving associations in urban orchards locally active in Mestre and Marghera.

For more information contact us at the following address  sostenibile@unive.it

sustainability competency

This activity can be recognized as a sustainability competency, with the agreement of the professors coordinating the student’s department.

The synergic orchard

The concept of a synergic orchard is based on the principles of organic agriculture written by the Japanese agronomer Masanobu Fukuoka and the Spanish farmer Emilia Hazelip: farming as naturally as possible relying on mulch to keep soil fertile in time and favoring a no-till agriculture to let animal and vegetal microorganisms develop in the soil.

Four elements are not involved in such an approach:

• tilling;
• chemical fertilizing;
• weeding;
• depending on chemical products such as pesticides.

The orchard tends to find a natural balance growing natural products. The spiral form given by the flower beds represents the link of nature with the universe, the phases of the moon, seasons and atmospheric weather from which we all depend and serves to improve the connection between all the cultivated species.

The orchard becomes an open-air laboratory of sorts in which students, especially those enrolled in environmental sciences, will be able to experiment and test bio-ecological concepts they studied in class.

The Garden of Biodiversity

The idea of a Garden of biodiversity at the Scientific campus emerged by the realization that we can only get closer to sustainability by acknowledging the existence of a “natural capital” and by attempting to implement and maintain it. Destruction of natural habitats, pollution, competitive pressure of exotic species, genetic pollution, global warming are among the many pressures that caused the extinction of more than a fifth of the plant species on our planet.

 

In Europe, 650 plants are considered extinct or in a critical situation. A recent study has enhanced how since the 1980s in the Veneto region 48 species have been lost. 1,500 are currently at risk, representing 43% of all the regional vegetation. Plants are an essential resource for our planet and man depends on them for all aspects of life: food, clothing, health, leisure.

In the Garden of Biodiversity a small collection of rare or at risk plants from the Veneto region will be presented as an opportunity for environmental education and as a resource for research and experimentation.

Opening ceremony

After the welcome addresses of Fabio Pranovi, representing Ca’ Foscari rector, of Cristina Corazzari, culture and security councillor for the region of Veneto, and Agostino Cortesi, Deputy Head of the  Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, the following people spoke:

• Fabio Pranovi - Rector's Delegate for sustainability, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
• Gabriella Buffa - professor of botanics, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics
• Mauro Giovanni Viti - Administrative Manager of the Economic Development, Regional Strategy for Biodiversity and Parks
• Giustino Mezzalira - Administrative Manager of Research and Agroforestry Management, Veneto Agricoltura

During the event, the project “Orchard on Campus” was presented as well as a call for participation for students and the “Regional red list of vascular plants. Region of Veneto”, a list of rare and endangered species in the Region of Veneto.

Finally three students planted the first seeds of endangered plants.

Regional red list of vascular plants. Region of Veneto

This milestone is the first list establishing the state of conservation of plant species in the Region of Veneto. The book introduced a list of rare and endangered species in the region of Veneto (1,509 species, 43% of the local flora) and the evaluation of their extinction risk using  the criteria established by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) adapted to the local scale. This inventory is mainly addressed to experts but can be read by a wider audience interested in plants, students in schools and universities, administrators, and by all of those who work in related fields and wish to improve their knowledge of our “natural capital”.

Despite the fact that the Red Lists are dynamic documents which can never be regarded as definitive, the data presented in this book gathers synthetic information on the conservation state of vegetal species and will be a useful basis for regular monitoring on the efficiency of implemented actions and actions to be undertaken to contrast risk factors and stop biodiversity loss in Veneto.