Alpine Pastorals #1 -- Little Red Cap

Riserva Naturale di Pian di Gembro. Valtellina

A kind of ruin

A ruin, in our common knowledge, is any building that, lost its original function, lays in a state of abandonment and decay. But, as it was the case of the "Parco Agricolo Sud Milano", the built environment goes far beyond the sphere of the constructions to embrace the larger category of any man made or shaped environment.
Recently, looking at the book "Tree line" by Robert Adams, this idea hit me in a clear way. In his book Adams presents several pictures of remnants of environmental works, such as wind barriers, made by living trees instead of bricks, rocks and adobe. At first this may sound a bit disorienting but how would you call them if not "ruins" ?
It is the case of almost all the Alpine landscapes. Far from retaining their original function most of the Alpine landscapes now have been frozen to the present into something more like a wax museum either by nature conservationist either by tourism promoters.