Pietro Laureano at TG1 PEOPLE of 4 October 2011

Pietro Laureano, architect and urban planner, is Unesco’s consultant for arid areas, Islamic civilization and endangered ecosystems.
He lived eight years in the Sahara working on the study and restoration of oases in Algeria. With numerous essays and books published since the late 1980s, he has shown that oases are the result of human ingenuity, a wealth of techniques and knowledge to combat aridity and a sustainable management model for the entire planet. He has coordinated and manages projects based on the recovery of ancient techniques of water collection systems with various international organizations throughout the Mediterranean, Yemen, Mauritania and Ethiopia.
He promoted the recovery of the troglodyte city of the Sassi of Matera in southern Italy, which had been completely abandoned in the 1960s, and is the author of the reports that led to the inclusion of the Sassi of Matera and the Parco del Cilento in the list of the UNESCO World Heritage. reality in relation to the recovery of urban ecosystems and the preservation of the landscape.
He is founder and coordinator of IPOGEA Study Center on Traditional Knowledge, a non-profit organization based in Matera and Florence that carries out projects to safeguard the landscape with ancient practices such as the use of dry stone terraces, water collection tanks and the draining tunnels.4
It is part of the UNESCO expert group that is working on the drafting of the new Landscape Convention. As the Italian representative in the Technical-Scientific Committee of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and as President of the Panel for Traditional Knowledge, he promoted the creation of a World Bank on traditional knowledge and their use innovative (www.tkwb.org). This initiative is carried out together with UNESCO through the creation of the International Institute of Traditional Knowledge (ITKI), based in Florence, which will have a decisive role in the new Landscape Convention.