The Board of Directors of FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano (the National Trust for Italy) at its meeting held today and following the decision of President Andrea Carandini to resign, has appointed Marco Magnifico, former Executive Vice President of FAI from January 2010 to October 2021, as its new President.
The Board of Directors thanked Professor Carandini for his extraordinary and untiring commitment, wisdom and vision over the years in favour of the Foundation and in favour of Italy in general, in the certainty that the friendship and closeness that bind him to FAI will never diminish.
Andrea Carandini accompanied his resignation with these words:
“I left my second term as President two years before the end of my term, thinking of the good of FAI. I dedicated my presidency to the reform of the Trust, so that it could emancipate itself from the circumstances of its beginnings, grow and mature, and thus be able to endure over time as a stable institution of the Republic. The reform has consisted of a strategic plan, which will be completed in 2024, aimed at realizing the “new dimension” of FAI: not only are there more properties that are protected, enhanced and managed – 68 today, 20 more than in 2013 – and more self-sustainable (they cover 85% of their costs), and a network of thousands of volunteers in 350 delegations across the country. There is also a strengthening of its cultural activities, which are founded on scientific research applied to cultural enhancement, on a vision of FAI properties as parts and expressions of their local contexts, and of an “environment” that is reconsidered as an indissoluble interweaving of nature and history. But a reform is not complete if it does not make it easier to move forward: hence the rejuvenation, starting with the presidential one. Today I leave FAI in the hands of the new President, Marco Magnifico, who will be the guarantor of an organised, solid, mature and effective structure in pursuit of the mission, in the tradition of the founders, but launched into the future.”
Andrea Carandini has been President since 19 February 2013. The presidency now passes to Marco Magnifico, who commented on his appointment:
“Having retired from all executive functions after 35 creative and wonderful years, and grateful to the Board of Directors for their trust, today, as its new President, I assure the Foundation the fullness of my enthusiastic, profound and convinced dedication to FAI’s mission. Following in the footsteps of the Founders and the three Presidents that preceded me, and alongside the operational structure and the Delegations of volunteers, I am committed to guiding FAI through a process of growth and evolution that will increasingly establish it as one of the leading players in Italian civil society, born and bred with a true social spirit to work alongside the institutions of the State in the care and enhancement of Italy’s “environment”, understood as the marvellous and inseparable union of Nature and History.”
