"We need generations that know how to find nourishment in the history from which they originate and can find the ability to raise the horizon of our gaze". These were the words of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of FAI - Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano, who received a delegation led by President Marco Magnifico at the Quirinale. "Our country," the Head of State added, "is the evocative mosaic we know, a stratification and testimony of so many histories and events, because it has been patiently composed. Culture has immense strength. It leads us on the road of knowledge, confrontation, dialogue, and growth. So of respecting each other's identities, of building shared and common identities. It is what is called civilization, which generates social capital, encounter, peace, development, which unites our European identity". Mattarella emphasizes that “the fate of man and the fate of the environment have never been so closely connected. You know this well because, in these decades of activity, you have taken charge of parts of the territory, restored them and succeeded in rebuilding oases of sustainability, of livability," the President says addressing FAI members in the audience. "It is not a matter of embalming places, but rather of making available to the community resources that are in danger of being dispersed if they are no longer valued," the Head of State explains, stressing that this "applies in particular to small towns, to inland areas, to the so-called minor islands that have been - inland areas particularly - so depleted of energy in recent decades". Mattarella also recalls that “Benedetto Croce - the promoter, as is well known, of the first Italian law on the landscape, approved in June 1922 - expressed the conviction that the very spirit of a community was linked to the territories and landscapes, degrading which risked weakening and eradicating the very historical and cultural roots. His daughter, Elena Croce - as you all know - was among the pioneers who, fifty years ago, taking an established British Foundation as a model, gave birth to this valuable Italian enterprise”.