When LORE started, there had already been serious local procedures. In Ikaria there had been a development conference (1995, published 1997). The basic development issues have been monitored clearly. The LORE Project gives to the 5 Partner Regions the opportunity to meet, without dependencies, and autonomously, basic development needs; to observe and to set up a method for sustainable orientation. LORE also gave the opportunity for an extensive exchange of views with other areas and other TERRA projects.

As it concerns Planning, there is adequacy. With this note I will try to monitor the issues and the prospects for Development. I will present here, as a mid-term report, the case of Ikaria concerning Planning and Development.

1. Ikaria has excellent wind power. We have stressed this to the local authorities and focused to the fact that they should face the mountain of Ikaria as a query of great value. Through LORE we have proposed an overall energy exploitation based on alternative energy. The Study for this is nearly at the end. RESULT: In one of the four municipalities the municipal council has already rented land to 2 private interests, for very low prices. The LORE study personnel was not invited to the municipal council. Also, private interests have filed proposals to the other municipalities of the island.
2. In Ikaria there has been constructed a Dam since 1995. Today, not even the necessary studies for its exploitation are complete. The situation is similar with that of the St Philippo Dam in the Partner Ragusa. We have proposed the foundation of one energy company for the whole of the province of Ikaria, in order to examine in a comprehensive way the water energy potencial, the wind energy potencial, the geothermal potencial. RESULT: The Municipality which has the dam in its environs, was motivated by a private company to form a separate company for the exploitation of the Dam.
3. In Ikaria there has been considerable effort in identifying the cultural routes of the past and particularly the ancient pathways. The aim is to use them as backbones for alternative forms of tourism (ecological tourism, agrotourism, etc). The LORE studies on pathways and ecotourism are on a final stage. RESULT: Although the local society has broadly accepted the ecotourism potencial, various private interests are opening new roads destructing the ancient pathways.
4. One of the major problems of Ikaria is overgrazing. Most of the overgrazed areas are in the territory of NATURA 2000. The problem has become a major public issue because the herders gain money from subsidies given by the E.U. for the animals (per capita subsidy). We have included through LORE a pilot study in order to increase the carrying capacity of the grazing area. However in the same area an investment project of the Regulation 2078/92 has started which acerbated the local tensions. RESULT: We had to select another area for the LORE pilot application, in order to preserve the educational character of the pilot project.

There are several other examples which can bee brought to attention. The fast is that the local society is “listening” the rationality calls and readjusts accordingly. Why rationality is not dominant? Is this fact connected with the decline of social cohesion?

It would have been a mistake to draw the blame to the local society, although there is also a share there. There seem to be endogenous weaknesses in adjusting to contemporary reality, not only in Ikaria, but also to a group of areas which, to my opinion, are the “weak” part of Europe, the areas which are in the bottom of the regions of Objective 1. Ikaria is the poorest island of the second poorest region of Europe (N. Aegean). In the LORE European Seminar in E. Pelion (March 1999) I have presented some points, which were the following:

“The regional inequalities of Europe increase… The edge of Europe, the hinterland, the areas which are under a development shadow, the 4^th world of the Big Cities, all these know well that their situation is related to the polarised development and the economic models of accumulation. All these have no political “weight”. As time goes by they lose in dignity, pride, and they feel as is defined by the official documents: Been “Territory”, “Isolated”, “remote”, “marginal”, and finally “inferior”.

In these regions (and in these social groups) we must identify the operation of a vicious cycle, that of “misery”. There is a deterioration of social values, an increase of localisms and territorial conflicts, a jeopardy of election criteria, a deterioration of representativity, an even greater production of misery. In other words, this “Misery Cycle” relates to the recess of social and political emancipation of the regions, the social groups, citizens. In the same mode, there is a deterioration of the relation between society and environment.

Such regions are the most needed of special policies and drastic measures, particularly the insular regions. They need exactly what they do not have:

• Good functioning of the public sector and public services.
• Technical support for the facilitation of endogenous development procedures
• Own resources
• Measures for the combat of isolation, through good and frequent operation of communications and transport systems, which are not, in these environments, competitive and viable.
• Stable support of certain vital cycles and activities
• Particular facilities, incentives and infrastructure, for the broadening of the production base.
• Resources and special policies for the youth and the 3d age

1. The initiation of a process of self-understanding and
2. b) The local benefits steaming from the Regional Observatories. Certain processes, which now reside in the “regional unconsiousness”, may be helped to rise to the level of social consiousness.