The Ghirardi Botanic Garden as promoter of a green tourist attraction in Toscolano Maderno (Brescia, Northern Italy)

This three-year project proposal is aimed at creating, managing, and promoting educational initiatives as part of a green tourist circuit, in which the plant world represents the element that connects three cultural sites in Toscolano Maderno (Brescia, Northern Italy): the Ghirardi Botanic Garden (GBG), the Bernini Park, and the Papermill Valley along with the Paper Museum. The objective is to develop responsible and sustainable tourist flows, through offers capable of integrating the cultural attractiveness of the scientific, naturalistic, historical, and artistic features of the territory. The project represents a meeting point between the tourist's search for authenticity and beauty, perfectly embodied by the plant world, and the need to protect the historical identity and enhance the territory, in a "green" key. This overturning of tourist behaviour can succeed only by increasing the collaboration among local actors and emphasizing the "sense of belonging" to the places. Simply put, what is offered by a territory must be closely linked to the desire on its residents’ part of preserving and promoting it. This is contemplated with the promotion of participative initiatives to enhance the plant resources: -the plant heritage preserved at the GBG, by scheduling training courses for guides/volunteers, promoting educational offers for local schools, and creating interpretative apparatuses that guide the visitor's attention from the GBG itself to the other target institutions, from the first year; - the centuries-old plants of the Bernini Park, with special focus on the monumental ones, starting from the second year; - the autochthonous species of the Papermill Valley, to be re-explored as a precious feature in the tourist's journey to the discovery of the Paper Museum, during the third year. The planning of the work program was possible thanks to the invaluable involvement of the Municipality of Toscolano Maderno (Brescia, Italy). (P. 0283)