Guardians of Garda Trentino
Riccardo, Livio, Franco: an ex-accountant turned carpenter, a former bricklayer who can do anything required and, finally, Franco, a former high school student with a passion for mountain biking, a degree in Motor Sciences and two large hands that can keep a firm grip on his handlebars but also tend a hedge with a gentle touch. Because Franco, Riccardo and Livio have always liked all things green.
The three of them make up the Garda Rangers, the first team whose task is to look after paths that have been eroded by mountain bikes, restore fences that have been aged by water, sun and wind, or excavate trenches dating from the Great War to ensure that our guests can appreciate all this land can offer. It is a vast, incessant and continuous job but one that, as Riccardo says, gives you great satisfaction, namely doing something for the environment in the place where you are fortunate enough to wake up every morning.
“I have a diploma in accountancy”, confides Riccardo, whom Livio and Franco have elected as team leader, “but it only took me two weeks to realise that this was not the life for me. I went into the forestry department, then had various work experiences in cooperatives, always involved in socially useful work. But in the meantime I spent a few years working in a warehouse in a footwear supermarket, as a window and door fitter and doing other jobs. A year ago came the call from the cooperative that led the three of us here, I straightaway said yes to the director and here I am at work.”
The look on Riccardo’s face as he admires the land with a shovel and rake on his shoulder needs to be explained. It is the look of love that anyone who has had the good fortune to be born here, where the mountains run down to this outpost of the Mediterranean, to the lake that was so dear to Goethe, all enveloped in a land where lemon trees blossom. The Garda Rangers criss-cross the woods and olive groves, they walk and cycle along the paths that prompt the adrenalin rush of the great outdoors, the same adrenalin that sparks your excitement along the ridges of our crags. The Rangers watch, observe, compare notes and decide what they can do to ensure our guests can savour the same air, the same emotions, the same panoramas.
How can you think otherwise when your gaze sweeps over this environment of air and water, where the wind is the driving force behind everything? The wind that stirs the waves on which world-famous sailing events are held, that blows through the leaves of the trees almost as if to amuse the cyclists along the trails, that sweeps the clouds from the skies that in Garda Trentino are of an immense, intense blue. This is where the Garda Rangers work. It almost makes you want to be part of it, wouldn’t you say?
And it is in fact the plan to find new Rangers to join Riccardo, Livio and Franco so that this land will remain the heritage of all, for us today and for future generations. Because the land knows no frontiers, just as the shores of the great lake embrace several boundaries but wisely merge them for the benefit of its guests. Managing the land to present its best face to visitors is the underlying reason for the Garda Rangers, “to do what is necessary”, Riccardo explains, “and, although there are currently just the three of us, to try to do it all to the best of our ability”.
This article was first published in the very first issue of BLU, the Garda Trentino magazine, back in 2023. Since then, the Garda Rangers team has grown – today, eight people are out there every day, taking care of the land and keeping it safe
