Green Karst Region. Between Natural Caves and the Alpine Wall Military Fortifications

The chapter aims at describing the goal, activities and main results of the Short Term Scientific Mission carried on in November 2019 by the author, within the COST Action 18110 - Underground Built Heritage (UBH) as catalyser for Community Valorization. The goal of STSM was to assist the COST Action through an in-depth understanding of the UBH re-use and heritage-led regeneration processes undertaken in the Green Karst Region (Slovenia). The focus of analysis consisted of two types of Underground Built Heritage (UBH): natural caves and military remnants of Alpine Wall Fortifications built by the Italian Army between the I and II World War. Data collection included document analysis, field inspections, interviews with local stakeholders and participant observation during a Living Lab meeting involving local stakeholders. The process of re-use and valorisation was at a different stage of development for caves and military remnants. As for the former, the chapter compares two quite different models of governance - respectively Postonja Cave and Krisna Cave, both "show caves". As for military remnants, the author examined three different groups of fortifications, i.e. the fort on Primo? hill, the caverns of Milanja and the remains of caverns and the roofless cave of Un?ka Koli?evska. However, only the first group have started a process of valorization, being recently integrated into the broader tourist offer of the park of Military History in Pivka. The chapter reports the main results of the first Living Lab meeting which took place during the STSM where local stakeholders worked together in order to identify a potential trajectory of development for the re-use and valorization of the military remnants spread throughout the region.