HISTORY OF THE SILA

The Silan plateau owes its particular topography to the incessant erosive action of atmospheric agents and glaciers that covered its peaks as early as ten thousand years ago. In the classic antiquity, it included the present territories and all the Calabrian Appenine and , with its secular and impenetrable forests, it covered the entire central region of Calabria.

The name Sila derives from the Greek hyle and the latin silva. According to Eliano [II century AC], the God of the forest, son of Crati, to whom pine resin was offered during ceremonies and in whose name, young oxen were sacrificed on altars adorned with pine and fir branches, was called Sileno. This then was the Sila. The Sila was also the forest dedicated to Hera Lacinia,whose temple stood on a promontory near Capo Colonna. Famous writers such as Virgil,Plinius and Cassiodorus praised the grandeur of the Silan forest in their writings.

During the period of the Roman republic, the forests of the Sila were owned by the Bruzi who had taken them from the early Greek colonizers and exploited the vast natural resources of the forests without ever venturing into the deep interior, Cicero, in his writings about ancient orators, confirms that the Sila belomged to the Bruzi ,and , after the Romans occupied all the regions of Italy, paid a peace tax to the republic,even though, on occasions they resisted the efforts of the tax collectors and fought pitched battles resulting in casualties on both sides.Other Historians who have written about the Ssila, have extolled the magnificence and inpenetrability of its forests, the richness of its pastures and the fierce character of its inhabitants.Eventually, the Bruzi attempted to rid themselves of Roman domination and allied with Pirrus and then with Hannibal and, at the end of the second Punic war, the Roman victory caused the Sila to be classified "Agro Pubblico"[public land] from which the Romans extracted lumber and pitch for their powerful ships.In this period,half the territory of la Sila fell under Roman domination. The romans built a road through it called Via Popilia[still in exhistence ]which reached the city of cosenza. This road, however, did not entice the people to settle in la Sila and the forest continued to shield its secrets and its charm shrouded in mystery,,,

Under the Roman empire, The Sila was protected and, together with Lucania became the Terza Regio [third region]. Even though the Romans extracted large sums in rentals from the largest Italian forest, the wellbeing of the Bruzi did not suffer since the resources of the Sila were truly enormous.With the fall of the Roman empire and the invasions of the Longobards, the Bruzi fell under tremendous hardships since they had to give the new occupiers one third of all their resources. After the Longobards came the Normans who instituted a feudal system in the territory. The main beneficiaries of the feudal system were the Cistercensi[Monastic order after the Benedictine doctrine] who built a monastery in Gioacchino, around which grew the major Silan town of San Giovanni in Fiore], After the Normans, the lands of the Sila were left subdivided in large estates[lands belonging to the Cistercensi], large tracts abusively occupied and lands occupied by farmers and shepherds who were driven by need to create arable lands by clearing the forest.[they used to burn the trees after extracting resin and turpentine] which they abandoned after a few years because the cultivation of crops on mauntanous terrain proved to be extremely precarious.The Svevi came efter the Normans [the splendid castle which stands above Cosenza was the residence of the great Fredrick II] and then came the Angioini who even taxed each plow in use. Thanks to Robert D"Angio, the sila was subdivided in three territories to avoid conflicts: lands belonging to the King,feudal estates and public lands. Thus the resources of the territory were enjoyed by all parties in relative freedom until the advent of Philip II who succeeded carl V [XVI century]. The Spanish government prohibited all types of lumberjacking activity and threatened to sell lands to wealthy forest barons. This threat never materialized as the people who would be affected bythis enactment staged a successful popular revolt. After the Spanish, the Sila was first controlled by the Austrians and then the Bourbons. The advent of the French revolution brought some of its ideas to this area of Italy and caused the fall of feudalism. The Sila became state property and its lands distributed to people engaged in agriculture, pastures and industry. In 1860 the Sila became part of the Kingdom of Italy and its inhabitants were allowed the use of the land gratuitously.The Royal Sila exhisted only in theory: Almost totally uninhabited, lacking efficient communication systems, it became embroiled in disputes and counterclaims on the ownership of lands and on the rights of public use. These disputes were caused by illegal seisure of properties in the public sector or those set aside for civic purposes for the people of Cosenza and Casali.The lands which were usurped were cleared of all trees and given to cultivation, creating permanent settlements.These destructive practices which lasted into the 1800s ,gave birth to social tensions as the affected populations were denied their secular rights to pasture lands.This social unrest nearly resulted in complete destruction of Silan forests by farmers, shepherds and large landowners.Large tracts of forests were cleared to create new arable lands and some were totally burned down to provide pastures. The distruction of these forests and the consequent erosion of its slopes created, in the valleys of the Silan plateau, enlargement of river beds and raised water levels due to huge amounts of detritus caused by landslides. Inspite of this, the clearing of forests continued until the second world war. Initially, the deforestation was performed by lumber companies from sabroad who cut the remaining forests of la Sila and built warehouses to hold the lumber and trains and cablecars to transport the lumber down to the valley.

The Sila ,then, came under great stresses from colonizers who took advantage of the new rail line that went from COSENZA TO CROTONE, traversing the heart of la Sila.

After the second world war, further deforestation occurred at the hands of the Anglo-American allies who extracted large quantities of lumber as war reparations.

In 1950, the state decided to remedy all these abuses and enacted a special law establishing the "Program For The Reconstruction Of La Sila" : large estates in la Sila and Crotone were expropriated and divided in smaller plots and assigned to the many villages of the plateau. In the decades that followed, the federal lands were reconstituted and became subject to immense reforestation.