The focus of this essay is to examine effective community-driven sustainable resource management actions in Simeto Valley, Italy, and help the United Nations identify potent place-based community initiatives that may be encouraged in communities with similar characteristics or further refined and integrated into the global environmental management framework.

With mushrooming criticisms of the top-down approach to resource use, community-led activities as a mechanism for sustainable resource management have continued to gain prominence in environmental management discourse and practice (Svensson, 2012; Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012; Bailey and Pill, 2015). Notably, the United Nation's Brundtland Report recognises local communities as indispensable actors for global sustainability (WCED, 1987). The report advocates explicitly for public engagement and inclusion of community organisations in the conservation of natural resources decisions. Similarly, the studies of Ghai and Vivian (2014) and Warburton (2018) recognise the intrinsic relationship between human actions and sustainable resource management. These arguments underline a dialectical implication for sustainable resource management, suggesting that cumulative individual actions at the local level, on the one hand, may exacerbate resources deterioration while, on the other hand, may assist in mitigating resources deterioration. Hence, community-driven actions that are channelled in the right direction may thus present significant prospects for protecting natural resources.

In this essay, the term "community-driven actions" refers to a type of activity that is anchored in a geographic area by community-based groups, which has the potential to harness local networks to effect change. This activity has been directed towards a wide variety of context-specific sustainability issues, including land regeneration in Bandar-Anzali, Iran (Pourzakarya and Bahramjerdi, 2021); protection of fisheries resources in Dique Channel, Colombia (Barrios et al., 2020), forest management in Mezquital Valley, Mexico (Perez-Serrano et al., 2021), among others. These emphasise the importance of community-driven actions in creating a sustainable balance, functional and harmonious coexistence between man and his environment. However, in Simeto Valley, community-driven actions were targeted towards restoring the Simeto river to foster its continuous ecosystem services provision (Saija, 2014). Accordingly, there is a potential for effective community-led environmental actions in the Valley, making it an appropriate case study for this essay.

The Case Study

The Simeto Valley (Figure 1) is located in Sicily, Italy, approximately on latitude 37⁰33’15.25” N and longitude 14⁰50’50.62” E. The valley is home to around 150,000 people who live in ten communities of varying sizes (Pappalardo, 2014). It is suitable for agricultural practice and human settlements due to the abundance of natural resources such as the 113 Km long Simeto river (renowned for its abundant fish supplies), rich alluvial soil, and natural water springs. However, since the 1950s, the community's natural resources and historical heritage have been significantly endangered by the mechanization of agriculture, rapid urbanization, and industrialization, resulting in the degradation of the river's ecosystem services in terms of quality and quantity (Pappalardo, 2014; Raciti and Saija, 2018). For instance, the construction of hydroelectric power generating plant and an anti-flooding project in the sensitive Simeto river, coupled with a high volume of untreated effluent from the industries in Simeto, decreases the fish stocks and degrades the water quality (Raciti and Saija, 2018; Saija, 2014). The combined impact of these activities poses a severe threat to the nature-based livelihood of the Simeto residents, potentially leading to overfishing.

The Simeto Valley’s Experience

The community-driven initiative in Simeto Valley dates back to early 2007 when two grassroots groups launched it. By late 2007, it had grown into a large group known as "The Participatory Presidium of the Simeto River Agreement," which included 50 grassroots organisations representing all ten Simeto Valley communities, and the Catania University, Memphis University, and St Lawrence University (Saija, 2015). "The Simeto River Agreement,"- a robust roadmap and framework for sustaining the Valley's natural resources, emerged in reaction to the unprecedented rate of environmental degradation commonplace in the Simeto Valley and is centred around five themes: agriculture, water, solid waste management, mobility, and cultural heritage (Saija, 2014; Raciti and Saija, 2018)

The role of the universities mentioned above was to devise relevant scientific solutions to meet the community's specific sustainability needs while also improving ecosystem services throughout the region (Pappalardo, 2014; Raciti and Saija, 2018). However, the Simeto River Agreement's overarching target was to foster a healthy human interaction with the river and increase opportunities for employment, cultural, and social relationships for all residents. It resulted in the development of a socially acceptable set of rules for sustainable resource management, allowing for the adoption of the circular economy concept (Zero Waste) and the acknowledgement of the Simeto river as a socio-ecological system rather than just a water stream that can be overexploited (Raciti and Saija, 2018). The Simeto community-based group's ambitions coincide with the concept of an impending shift in the human-centric utilitarian mode of relating with the environment to protect natural resources and the planet Earth.

The Simeto community-based group campaigned and filed a legal action to prevent the construction of an incinerator near the river (Pappalardo, 2014). The strong opposition, driven by the "Coalition of Grassroot Groups for the Simeto River," dissuaded policymakers from implementing the "Regional Waste Management Plan" that would have further degraded the Simeto River (Saija, 2014). The group also prevented the DB Group Factory from receiving permission to use hazardous waste in its manufacturing process (Saija, 2013), protecting the river from resulting potential industrial pollution.

As part of the group's commitment to sustainability, a long-abandoned park in Adrano's low-income neighbourhood and a neglected site close to the river (which was subjected to illegal dumping of asbestos) were cleaned up and redesigned using ecological principles (Pappalardo, 2014). The involvement of schoolchildren and teenagers in implementing these projects is meant to instil a culture of communal responsibility, ecological awareness, and environmental stewardship to the next generation to ensure perpetuity.

Important Enabling Factors

The community's key feature contributing to the success of the community-led efforts is conceptualising the Simeto River as a living thing on which all aspects of communal life are dependent. Underpinning this was their proactiveness, responsibility and preoccupation with revamping historical Simeto identity. Also, the existing cultural, emotional, and functional relationship between the residents and ecosystems fosters environmental stewardship in the Valley (Raciti and Saija, 2018). The motives of community-based groups to prevent exploitative actions are significantly influenced by their awareness of these relationships and associated environmental and socio-cultural benefits. In the face of exploitative political interests, the organisational capabilities of community-based groups via the formation of a community-university collaboration may have played a vital role in achieving a significant sustainability impact.

The cleaning and rebuilding of Adrano Park based on ecological principles was a collaborative idea suggested by the local inhabitants (Pappalardo, 2014). Implementing such proposals may have improved trust, involvement, and support for the grassroots environmental efforts. Furthermore, adopting the "Community Mapping Initiative" (Figure 2) to show the effect of overexploitation on the river via maps rather than abstract details may have further contributed to improved public participation and communication within the Simeto Valley.

Lessons for Sustainable Resource Management

One of the lessons to be drawn from this case study is that grassroots environmental activities may position communities as centres of sustainability innovation, therefore assisting the planet in transitioning toward the urgently needed sustainable use of natural resources. Furthermore, the community-university partnership may help translate grassroots environmental actions into a conceptual framework, enabling the broader application of indigenous ecological knowledge to the sustainable management of Earth's fast depleting resources and providing indigenous communities with up-to-date information on how to take scientific-based circumspective natural resource use actions. Hence, inter-stakeholder collaboration is critical to achieving sustainability. Coincidentally, Ostrom (1990) asserts that collaboration between key actors is central to tackling sustainability challenges, especially for managing common resources.

The Simeto case proves the existence of a strong bond between the people and natural resources. Madondo (1997) and Mohamed-Katerere (2002) have revealed that such a relationship is critical to resource management. Thus, successful grassroots environmental actions rely on the interests and involvement of the most impacted groups. Boissie're et al. (2009), Conrad and Hilchey (2011), and Johnson et al. (2016) explained that incorporating local people's interests is key to delivering sustainable resource management solutions. Accordingly, sustainable resource management calls for a bottom-up approach in which local organisations and political leaders collaboratively establish and implement development plans. This can help limit natural resource depletion, reduce opposition from local organisations, and improve service delivery. Finally, the essay contends that the over-exploitative behaviours of local people, as depicted by Hardin (1968) in the "tragedy of the commons," are not universally applicable to all communities, and the community members' individual and collective interests may be critical to ensuring sustainable resource management.

Conclusion

After decades of pollution, the essay demonstrates how community-driven environmental actions lead to the sustainable use of the livelihood-sustaining Simeto river resource. Collaboration among key stakeholders and the proactiveness of community-based groups can offer community-driven environmental actions more efficacy and the potential to transcend their limitations.

**This essay was written as part of a 1500-word assignment for an MSc Environment and Development degree at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. It has been assessed

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