Dal dire al fare. Censire per tutelare.

The paper deals with an experience held within a landscape commission. It regards the protection of dry-stone walls and the critical issues due to the high land profitability of the investigated area and the tourist pressure of the site. Paying attention to the slopes facing the lake of Como in Lombardy, it will be pointed out how building activity and preservation interact with the terraced landscape and the hydrogeological balance of the soils. For justified urgency, the case study did not follow the expected steps of an approval process; the limits, both for landscape commissions and the heritage service to protect the landscape are therefore underlined in the face of the legitimate private owner’s rights. The case allows testing the effectiveness both of procedures and rules to protect not only the landscape features but to take care of them in advance, considering that 'supervision' cannot always be vigilant and that it must necessarily rely on local and collective sensitivity for preservation. It is oriented to query how the considerable number of studies and specialist research on the subject can reach daily building practice and professionals’ activities.