Municipality of Mazara del Vallo

The Municipality of Mazara del Vallo was partner, besides Finland, Hungary, Romania and Spain in a project called “AGRINET” within the Ecos-Ouverture community programme in the years of 1996 and ’97.AGRINET was focused on rural tourism with special regard to farm tourism. Farm tourism is a non-traditional form of tourism, not addressed to the masses, but at the same time widespread, showing respect for the environmental heritage, the search for quietness and countryside traditions. In 1998 the administration was partner in the project “Propart” within the Ecos-Ouverture programme focused on the creation of a network between Administrations and industries in order to favour cooperation and industrial partnerships between Italy, Marocco and Tunisia.Within the community programme Life-Nature ’99 Mazara del Vallo got financed a project which regards the “Reclamation and Environmental Remediation of the Capo Feto Biotope”. Since the year 2000 the reserve has been proclaimed “Biotope of international interest”. The objective is to show to the public, in the future, a very interesting damp zone which contains a very rare flora and fauna but, also, to give a tourist importance. In the same year another project called “Le città del mare – Circuito dei Borghi Marinari (The cities of the sea - the circuit of the fishing suburbs)” has been financed thanks to the ERSF. The cultural tourism beginning from a specific theme "The cities of the sea – The Circuit of the fishing suburbs", the activity of exploitation of the tourist and cultural sites, is organized according to cultural and thematic criterions and of marketing of the single city and the destination in its complex, defined as whole of visit places participating to a circuit.Considering its nature, it is a planning document which defines, in specific terms, the guide lines for the development of the territory and it establishes the same concept of itinerary, fixing rules for the qualified tourist fruition of the cultural patrimony. The project will, therefore, see this area of the Mediterranean object of a careful operation of territorial marketing, aimed atdiscovering and studying in communicative terms, all the wealth inside, from those more easily visible, to those, above all, which are actually in a potential state.Thanks to a special National Fund another project called “Giardino dell’Emiro (The Emir’s garden)” has been financed. The project foresees,on the one side the environmental restoration of the Mediterranean vegetation, from the other the recovery of the ancient caves of tufo (stone) and the restoration of the paleo-christian cave, being in the past a burial. The project has a strong tourist value, considering that facilities for the reception of the tourists are foreseen.In 2003 a project of twinning called ”Euromediterranean – Culture, economy and development in the vivacity of the peoples” was financed by the European Commission and realised in Mazara del Vallo. The event was devoted to the principal themes about balanced development of the maritime cities which lean out on the Mediterranean, with the finality to create a moment of meeting to exchange best practices and to prepare a preliminary draft for future partnership in a Europe more and more widened. The partners had been Spain, Greece, Malta and Tunisia.In the same year a cooperation project with Tunisia had been financed called “Proche” and in 2005 the second part had been financed. In the year 2004/05 Mazara del Vallo was partner in a Interreg III b Medocc project called “Marimed” managed by the Region Emilia Romagna. In the year 2007 the Municipality of Mazara del Vallo took part in a project called THON.DOC within the programme Interreg IIIb Medocc managed by the prefecture of Heraklion (Greece). Besides Italy the other partners are from Portugal and Spain.