Green E-government

by Eleonora Anello

The Department of Environment of Parma launches Parmambiente, new portal dedicated to the territory which has the main objective of strengthening democracy and that is improving the relationship between taxpayers and administrators.
This is a site developed with the dual purpose of comply with the new laws and to make available to citizens a data and services container like analysis, projects and information on the state of the environment, on the levels of pollution, on improvement projects, on best practices adopted by government and, soon, even from the companies in the field of sustainability.

Area easily accessible and searchable, Parmambiente is a good example of "eGovernment". There it shows its main promoter: the assessor Giancarlo Castellani.

Assessor, what are the goals that arise in a administration in the building of a portal as Parmambiente?
«With the new portal we wanted to provide to all interested parties, subject to transparency, convenience and efficiency the information of the "state of the environment of our territory" that can and should be reported promptly to the community. It is important that all may have information about the environment we live in and it is even more in a province like ours, which is famous for its excellent food: excellence that to remain so they need a protected territory. Must not forget that the theme of the environment requires a continuous and constant attention. The goal achieved is therefore to provide an additional services to that staff and offices held regularly, all using the power of computing platform ».

Can the contact and attachment to their territories to improve and change the perception and thus the environmental behaviour?
«Where there is an environment to be protected must generate strong social values, for the simple reason that where there are strong social values, there isn’t the need to protect the environment, these simple words contain in them a fundamental truth that becomes the objective of our daily action through a continuous and extensive work that should be the preservation and protection of the environment to education to the same. There is a phrase that may further explain the importance of working on the values and the perception towards our territory, this phrase by Wendell Berry, poet, writer and above all a farmer for many years in practice first hand and spread throughout the world of traditional, natural and sustainable farming methods , that says about our children and their detachment have toward their environment: "Our children no longer learn to read the great book of nature from their direct experience, nor to interact creatively with the seasonal changes of our planet. Rarely learn where it comes from or where it ends up the water ... "».