In the heart of the Ticino Park, the Bosco degli Chef is born: over 6,000 trees planted with Diego Rossi, Cesare Battisti and others
Every year, on April 22nd, the world stops for a moment. It is the moment in which we think about our planet, its fragility and the most pressing challenges to face. World Earth Day, born in 1970 from an American intuition and subsequently becoming a global phenomenon, today involves 192 countries and, on average, around a billion people. This is not a symbolic anniversary, but rather the point of connection between concrete initiatives, large and small, which try to translate environmental concern into real actions. This year, among the proposals, there is also a very particular forest that is being created on the outskirts of Milan.
The project in the Ticino Park
In the San Massimo Reserve, a Site of Community Interest immersed in the Ticino Park, over 6,000 new trees have been planted on 600 hectares of estate in recent weeks. Alders, oaks and poplars planted in areas that until recently remained uncultivated, have now been transformed into new wooded areas. The objective, explains the director Dino Massignaniis «to create a new surface over time that will contribute to strengthening the environmental balance and increasing the absorption capacity of CO₂. To celebrate this moment we have involved chefs who have always supported the project and with whom we share our most important values.”
This is not a purely symbolic gesture. The Reserve has been pursuing a bio-integrated agriculture model for decades that combines excellent production and respect for natural habitats. There Antonello familywho has led the property since the nineties, has built over time a reality recognized throughout the world for the cultivation of Classic Carnaroli Rice: spring water, natural fertilization, respect for vegetative cycles. A delicate balance, which today is enriched with a new and poetic chapter.
The Chefs’ Forest
The most original element of the project is its collective soul. Furthermore, to celebrate the planting, the Reserve involved some of the best-known names in Italian haute cuisine: Diego Rossi, Cesare Battisti, Roberto Cerea and other chef partners of the estate took to the field, literally, to plant the first trees of the so-called Bosco degli Chefs.
Other professionals will also be involved during the year, and the complete list will be updated on the Reserve website. The basic idea is that of a conscious supply chain that combines agricultural production and catering in the name of environmental responsibility: those who cook with these products also participate in the care of the territory that generates them.
It is a choice that represents something more than simple “green communication”. In a sector often accused of greenwashingthe physical gesture of planting a tree with your own hands has a very different weight, much more concrete than a report or a press release.
The San Massimo Reserve project is the result of a vision built over time, which today finds Earth Day the right moment to show itself in its entirety. Six thousand trees are a tangible, measurable number, which adds to an environmental heritage already recognized internationally – Mab-Unesco Biosphere Reserve since 2002 -, which aims to become an ecological model of inspiration for everyone, and not just on the occasion of World Earth Day.
Page dedicated to the project, where the names of the chefs who participated are indicated: https://riservasanmassimo.it/coltivare-insieme-il-futuro/
