World Congress of Naturists (1)

Once every two years the International Naturist Federation holds a World Congress. While you could assume this is the equivalent to football's World Cup or to the Olympics, it is actually a gathering, not so much of rank-and-file naturists, but of national-level naturist organizations from all over the world.
After past congresses in Croatia and Brazil, the INF chose Italy for its 32nd World Congress. From September 8 through 12, the delegates will meet at Pizzo Greco, a camping village with a nice beach near Isola di Capo Rizzuto in Calabria, the southwestern part of Italy. While Italy is close to the European heartland of naturism, the country is actually one of the least naturism-friendly ones if you compare the number of naturist resort and free naturist beaches to neighboring countries like France, Croatia, or even Spain and Greece. The presence of the INF World Congress is supposed to help change that situation.
What happens at INF World Congresses? The movement has its own sports events, so the congress is not really to be compared with the World Cup or the Olympics. Representatives of the national naturist groups will sit down and discuss topics relevant to the current situation of international naturism, as well as put forward motions that can be accepted or rejected by votes during the congress.
Topics which will the subjects of roundtable discussions at this weekend's congress include the relationship between naturism and vegetarianism, the conflict between ethical naturism and commercial naturism, naturism and ecology, and the differences in naturist experiences by men and by women.
It will be worthwhile following the coverage of the event by the international media as well as the latest news from the congress itself.
Over the next week, Asianaturist will report more about the issues at stake and about the event. The relevant web sites are:
http://www.ifn-fni.org
http://www.fenait.org for the Italian Naturist Federation;
http://www.pizzogreco.com for the location.

Naturism at Travel Fairs and the INF World Congress

While we're on the subject of Italy, let's continue with a look at edition 45 of the Italian Naturist Association FENAIT's Info Naturista magazine.

Featuring prominently of course is the fact that for the first time ever, Italy will be the host of the International Naturist Federation INF-FNI's once-every-two-years World Congress. The magazine also reports on Italian naturists' participation in travel fairs, mostly in the Netherlands and Belgium.

The 32nd INF World Congress takes place from September 8 thru 12 at Pizzo Greco, a naturist camping resort near the town of Isola di Capo Rizzuto, in Calabria. For those of you who see Italy as a boot, then Calabria is the tip pointing toward Sicily in the far Southwest. Each Congress sees representatives from dozens of countries traveling to the destination to meet and discuss the promotion of international naturism. In 2004, Taiwan was represented at Valalta in Croatia. Info Naturista also hopes this year's event will receive a lot of attention in the Italian media. Theme of the congress is Ethical Naturism and Commercial Naturism, in other words the ever-present tension between large-scale resort ventures and small-scale, ecologically friendly campsites in forests and other remote tourism.

Talking about the ethical side, this issue of the magazine also features a report on a ecology-friendly naturist campsite in Montenegro across the Adriatic from Italy, and has a letter from a reader claiming a carnivorous nudist cannot be regarded as a true naturist, in other words, naturists should be vegetarians.

Turning to tourism fairs, in most European countries it is completely natural to have naturist resorts or associations holding a stand for their business. The magazine of course mentions Naturisme Totaal in the Dutch town of Utrecht last year, which was a travel fair completely devoted to naturism. 9,000 visitors in two days last December, the magazine reports, making sure that there will be a sequel in December 2010. The Italians were represented by four stands, each for a separate naturist resort. They were also present at the main travel fair - where most visitors might never have heard of naturism - in January this year, while Belgian naturist resorts helped distribute Italian promotion material at the travel fairs in Antwerp and Brussels.

Info Naturista again mentions the great fact that young Italians have formed a naturist association of their own, the GIN, with its own blog at http://gin.fenait.org. In addition, there are comments about the piece "Diary of a Smoker" by U.S. author David Sedaris about a first encounter with naturism. Local associations complete the magazine with reports about their winter activities, which even in Mediterranean Italy mean mostly sauna meetings safely indoors.

For a change, next time, we'll go back to Asia for a post about new associations promoting naturism in countries until now off the naturist world map. Hopefully, in the near future, they too can join the INF and be present at its World Congress.