NATIONAL PARK OF CILENTO AND VALLO OF DIANO

establishing law d.l. 394 del 6.12.1991

official list of protected natural areas identification number: 13

Legal authority : Park body corporate

Park area : 181.048 Ha

Region : Campania

Province : Salerno

Mountain communities :

Alburni, Alento-Monte Stella, Bussento, Calore Salernitano,Gelbison e Cervati, Lambro e Mingardo, Vallo di Diano, Tanagro

Communes :

*Agropoli, *Aquara, Ascea, *Auletta, Bellosguardo, *Buonabitacolo, Camerota, Campora, Cannalonga, *Capaccio, *Casal Velino, *Casalbuono, *Casaletto Spartano, *Caselle in Pittari, *Castel San Lorenzo, *Castelcivita Castellabate, *Castelnuovo Cilento, Celle di Bulgheria, Centola, *Ceraso, *Cicerale, *Controne, Corleto Monforte, *Cuccaro Vetere, Felitto, *Futani, *Gioi, *Giungano, *Laureana Cilento, Laurino, *Laurito, *Lustra, Magliano Vetere, *Moio della Civitella, *Montano Antilia, *Monte San Giacomo, Montecorice, Monteforte Cilento, *Montesano sulla Marcellana, *Morigerati, Novi Velia, *Omignano, Orria, Ottati, Perdifumo, *Perito, *Petina, Piaggine, Pisciotta, *Polla, Pollica, *Postiglione, *Roccadaspide, *Roccagloriosa, *Rofrano, Roscigno, Sacco, *Salento, *San Giovanni a Piro, San Mauro Cilento, San Mauro la Bruca, *San Pietro al Tanagro, *San Rufo, Sant'Angelo a Fasanella, *Sant'Arsenio *Santa Marina, *Sanza, *Sassano, Serra Mezzana, *Sessa Cilento, *Sicignano degli Alburni, *Stella Cilento, Stio, *Teggiano, *Torre Orsaia, *Tortorella, *Trentinara, Valle dell'Angelo, *Vallo della Lucania

(*) Communes whose historical town centre or/and part of their territory is partially included in the park perimeter.

 

MAB-UNESCO biosphere reserve

The Consulting Committee on the UNESCO MAB (Man and Biosphere) Biosphere Reserve Program, in the meeting that took place in Paris on June 9-10 1997, included by unanimously approval The National Park of Cilento and Vallo of Diano in the prestigious network of the Biosphere Reserve. The concept of Biosphere Reserve, first introduced in 1974 by the UNESCO "Work Group of the MAB Program of Man and Biosphere", was actuated in 1976 with the activation of the Biosphere Reserve World Wide Network, considered the chief component to realize MAB aim: to preserve a balance, durable in time, between Man and his environment through the conservation of the biological diversities, the promotion of economic development and the protection of the linked cultural values. Biosphere Reserves are then "specified areas in Ecosystems, or in combinations of land and coastal/marine ecosystems, internationally recognized in the MAB (Statute frame of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves). In accordance to modern concepts of dynamic protection and conservation, Biosphere Reserves (Convention of Seville - Resolution 28 C/2.4 - UNESCO General Conference) have been playing an important role since 1995 which is perfectly integrated to the founding functions of National Parks and to the principles established by the Law 6 December 1991, n° 394 (Frame LAW on Protected Natural Areas). With the creation of the National Park of Cilento and Vallo of Diano Reserve of Biosphere, for the first time in Italy the concept of localized conservation is introduced to protect specific areas (so called "spots of leopard") within the perimeter of a large extension area. The Park, then, in application of the UNESCO MAB PROGRAMME directions, will have to perform, beside his founding functions, a specific social economic function which takes into account the interrelations between cultural real estates and natural estates. All the land acquires a transboundary and worldly value having drawn a priority "pact" to ensure those links among similar and connected ecosystems which marks the concept itself of "Network" (The MAB World Network included 329 reserves in 82 counties in 1996) and to make information circulate freely among all the interested countries. One of the most important objectives of the Biosphere Reserves is also an investment in the future realized through programs, scientifically correct, of formation, popularization and information on the relationships between Humanity and Environment with long term perspectives and on inter-generation basis. In conclusion the Biosphere Reserves have to preserve and to produce scientifically natural and cultural values through a culturally creative and operationally sustainable correct management.

The insertion in the list of the UNESCO world heritage

The candidacy of the Park and the archaeological sites of Paestum and Velia for the insertion in the list of the UNESCO World Heritage assumes an innovative aspect at an international level, either because it proposes in an unitary and inseparable way the Environmental and Cultural values of the vast territorial reality of one of the largest Italian National Parks, very important in the Mediterranean area, or because it has been advanced on proposal of territorial and administrative Authorities (Body Corporate National Park of the Cilento and Vallo of Diano, Province of Salerno, Town Hall of Capaccio-Paestum, Provincial Tourism Organization, with the agreement of the Superintendence B.A.A.A.S. and Archaeological and under the high guarantee of the Prefecture of Salerno). This is in line with the directives of the International Convention that appreciates in particular way, since the moment of the choice of candidacy, the persuaded involvement of the Local Bodies Corporate and populations more interested in the management and the care of the Good.

Justification of the universal exceptional value:

The Park of the Cilento and Vallo of Diano, result of the combined work of Nature and man, is part of the category of the evolutionary landscapes (Mixed Goods), being the result of historical, social, economic, artistic and spiritual events, and reaching its actual " form " in association and answer to its natural environment. It is today a living landscape that, also maintaining an active role in the contemporary society, preserves the traditional characters that have produced it in the territorial organization, in the plot of the paths, in the structure of the cultivations and in the system of the settlements. As natural species in geographical environments, so different people have found in these places the point of contact, the intersections and the fusions, the enrichment of the genetic patrimony. In the Cilento It is realized the meeting between sea and mountain, Atlantic and East, Northern and African cultures. This land melts people and civilization and preserves the evident traces of them in its distinctive characters: the Nature, the Cultural, Archaeological, Architectural Patrimony, the Territorial order soaked of medieval elements, the alive world of the Traditions. Placed at the center of the Mediterranean it is therefore its proper Park because of this sea it embodies what is the deepest spirit, the bio-diversities wealth, the environmental interpenetration, the History, synthesis of the meeting of people and different civilization.

Correspondence to the criterions UNESCO:

Only one in Italy, the Park has been candidate as Mixed, Natural and Cultural Good. As natural good it meets to the UNESCO standards (ii); (iii); (iv):

(ii) it is an eminent and representative example of the ecological and biological trial of the Mediterranean ecosystems, containing in one Park communities of plants and animals that go from the sea forms to those terrestrial arid, half arid, northern, Atlantic, Asian, hilly and high mountain.

(iii) It represents, in its intact coasts rich in caves and inlets, in its mountains interested by carsick phenomena, in the wealth of unique endemic vegetable species, an area of beauty disposition and exceptional aesthetic importance.

(iv) It contains natural habitats among the most representative for the maintenance in site of the biological difference and for the survival of menaced animal species as the Otter and unique vegetable species as the Primula Palinuri, of an exceptional universal value from the point of view of the preservation.

From the point of view of the Cultural Good it meets the UNESCO standards (iii); (iv); (v):

(iii) it gives an exceptional testimony on the cultural traditions and the civilization of the ancient Mediterranean people, through the system of the paths, of the settlements, of the sanctuaries still existing and of the intact archaeological remains;

(iv) it is an eminent example of the urban civilization since his first demonstrations; it preserves intact the structures and the architectures showing the period of the first Greek colonization in Italy, with the particularity of exalting the meeting of Great Greece with the Apennines and Mediterranean Cultures;

(v) it constitutes an exceptionally representative example of medieval culture in the system of the human settlements and the ways of use of space, culture stratified on systems of paths and territorial organization dating from the highest antiquity and the prehistory and preserved up to our days maintaining contemporarily the extraordinary signs of the aboriginal and millennial cultural matrixes.

 

Geologic aspects The Cilento, land of the delicate hilly morphologies, covered by rows of ash green olive-groves which are reflected in the blue of the Tirreno Sea and at the same time, land of the very sour morphologies deeply engraved by vivacious streams, rows of lunar aspect, woods of chestnut trees and ilexes, villages rooted to the rocks or laid on the shores. Few people imagine that to determine this fresco, made up of forms and suggestive colors apparently in strong contrast, it is the double geologic nature of the rocks which constitute the Cilento: that of the "Flysch of the Cilento", that has its maximum diffusion in correspondence of the hydro geographic basin of the River Alento and of the main mountains of the western Cilento, as the Centaurino Mount (1433 ms), and that of the calcareous " rocks " that constitute the inside mountainous complexes (Alburno-Cervati) and southern (Mount Bulgheria, Mount Cocuzzo) of the National Park of the Cilento and Vallo of Diano.On the higher coast, the Flysch is characterized for the dense stratification of the rocks, which sometimes assume forms and particular colors, as that at Ripe Rosse or in the sea balcony of Punta Licosa. The deriving landscapes are often recognized for the delicate morphologies and for the larger arboreal presence of the Mediterranean bush. Leaving the north-western coast, territory of the Flysch, and going towards the inland part of the National Park of the Cilento and Vallo of Diano, the landscape changes: we are in the kingdom of the calcareous rocks at the presence of the carbonate massif of the Alburni and the Cervati. The landscape, modeled with carsick forms, the sourness of some slopes marked by an intense tectonics, the big gorges dug by streams perpetually in flood, presents with a lunar aspect made bare by the poverty of the grounds, even if, where the conditions of the soil and the waters allow, it becomes rich of Mediterranean woods and beech woods or of lavender lawns. The characteristic of the geology of these rocks is the carsick form, due to the dissolution of the kick carbonate that produces " erosion " and deposition with formations, among others, of stalactites and stalagmites. The forms that derive can be superficial (epigee) as the furrows of the fields made by carts, or deep (ipogee) as caves, galleries and hollows, present in the territory of the Park, a lot of which still unexplored. The carsick phenomenon is almost particularly present in the Alburni Mountains with the magnificent evidences of the Castelcivita Cave 5 kilometers long; the Pertosa cave accessible for a long line by platforms; and the Auso cave near S. Angelo a Fasanella. Carsick Forms of particular interest are then those that the river Bussento has produced in the line Caselle in Pittari -Morigerati, with its long underground course and the deep gorges produced by the river Mingardo in the line of crossing of the Mount Bulgheria. Deep cuts, that engrave the soft white limestone, are those produced by the stream Sammaro, by the river Calore and by the Bussentino; their impetuous waters are often responsible of falls and rapid of seldom natural show.

From Prehistory to History

The carsick nature of the Cilento land and the consequent wealth of caves no doubt have favored the presence of the man who found shelter and ate his meals in them. The most ancient signs of human presence date back to the Middle Paleolithic (500.000 years B.C.) and traces continue through the Neolithic up to the Metal age. The presence of the primitive man is today still tangible through the presence of his disseminated " tools " either in the coastal caves between Palinuro and Scario , or in internal ones dislocated along the ancient ridge paths of mountains ( Caves of Castelcivita ), and in the Vallo of Diano ( Caves of the Angel, Pertosa ). And it is through these ancient paths that probably began the big adventure of the first communities that, continuously for thousands of years, established contacts and intertwined exchanges and relationships with the people of the sea and with those of the Apennine. The evidences, in the resemblance of the forms of local objects with those of the ancient cultures of the Liparis, of the Tavoliere, of Serra d'Alto, are in the funeral outfits of the local Culture of the Gaudo . In the Bronze age the whole territorial organization appears already defined: the routes of the transhumances and the traffics are evident, along the ridge path, from the Tirreno to the Ionio and vice versa, where rise places of cult, sacrificial altars and rocky sculptures as well the Antece of the Alburni Mountains . And it is the ancient Cilento the protagonist of the mediation between Asia and Africa, between the nuraghe cultures and those of ancient Greece, between the northern " Villanovan " world and the Enotris, the Lucanis. And there came the advent of the modern man, the beginning of the big adventure of the Civilization, the start of the multiform culture of the Mediterranean. And perhaps on the ancient routs of the obsidian, or to the copper search, the first Greeks landed on the coasts of the Cilento (around the 17th century B.C.) where later (at the end of the 7th - 6th century B.C.) the colonial cities were born: Pixunte , Molpa and the ancient Poseidonia (the Roman Paestum), founded by the Acheis Sibariti that here came with the Apennine people, not from the sea but through the well known, safer and more quicker ridge paths. While the sea brought the Foceis, aboriginal of Asia Minor, founders of Elea (today Velia ), the city of the Porta Rosa , of Parmenide and of his "Eleatica" Philosophical School , one of the most important and famous of the classical world, and of the first Medical School . Then, from the beginning of the 4th century B.C., Lucani, Romans and Eastern Christians interwove traffics and alliances, started conflicts and wars, occupied and refunded cities, transforming the Cilento in a melting pot, where people and cultures are melt and mixed. With the fall of the West Empire about the 6th century A.D., also for the Cilento, it began the long period of the barbaric dominations: the Visigoths of Alaric, the Gothic war between Totila and Belisario, the spread of the Basilian Monachism, the feudal imposition of the Longobardi, the continuous attacks and raids of the Saracens. And once more there was the meeting between different civilizations, abbeys and cenobites were born in which the Greek and Latin rituals coexisted, leaving us splendid jewels as the Abbey of Pattano with the Chapel of S.Filadelfo , the frescos of the Basiliana Chapel in Lentiscosa . And then, in 1076, there came the conquest of the Normans who transformed the Cilento in Barons' land with estates and exploitations. The following years the Sanseverinos, the Svevis, the Angioinis, fought, conspired, and their tyrannies often caused revolts; the whole territory was dismembered among nobles without scruples who, between the 16th and the 17th the century, wrote one of the saddest and cruel pages of this land also contributing to the birth of Brigandage. And at this point history becomes legend, heroes' ballad, epic of a proud People tired of continuous violence and injustice. And finally, after the sacrifice of the last martyr immolated in the Cilento land near Sanza ( Pisacane ), the people of the Cilento and Vallo of Diano regained the craved justice and liberty.

The Flora

The flora population of the Park is constituted probably by about 1800 different species of spontaneous autochthonous plants. Among them about 10% have notable phyto-geographic importance being endemic and/or rare. The most well known of these species, and the most important is perhaps the Primula of Palinuro ( Primula Palinuri ), symbol of the Park, palaeoendemic species with extremely located diffusion. In the territory of the Park, for its central position in the basin of the Mediterranean, typically present are southern entities of arid environments to their superior limit of expansion together with species, with purely northern distribution, that here reach the southern limit of their area as well as those to oriental or western areas. During the territorial evolutionary dynamics the plants have occupied all the available ecological niches, including those gradually created by the man enriching the already ample mosaic of the biodiversities. They have, slowly and gradually, evolved and associated in community of highly specialized plants and in balance with the environment constituting the actual vegetable landscape of the Cilento. On the beaches, among the communities of the sands, it is still present the more and more rare Sea Lily ( Pancratium maritimum ); on the bluffs at direct contact with the spray of the sea phytocenosis live with extremely specialized halophyte and dominated by the endemic Statice salernitana ( Limonium remotispiculum ) while on the frequent coastal cliffs the Mediterranean rocky groups are studded of precious endemic species as the Primula of Palinuro, the Carnation of the cliffs ( Dianthus rupicola ) the Centaurea ( Centaurea cineraria ), the florid Iberis ( Iberis semperflorens ), the Neapolitan Campanula ( Campanulafragilis ), and others which characterize, with their flowerings, a coastal landscape of rare beauty. In the Mediterranean-arid band, kingdom of the multiform and multicolor Mediterranean bush, here enriched, in only two coastal places, by the Broom of the Cilento ( Genista cilentina ) species individualized in 1993, by carob-tree ( Ceratonia siliqua ), red Juniper or " fenicio " ( Junipero rus phoenicea ), ilex groves, groves of Aleppo Pines ( Pinus halepensis ). In the coastal area, particularly, the fabric of the evergreen woods and the Mediterranean bush are permeated by olive-groves, almost natural gardens that are confused and integrated in the warm nature of the Cilento coasts. At higher altitude and in the internal part the Oaks, at times old and solitary to watch of the ancient fields, now in compact formations together to Maples, lime-trees, Elms, Ashes and Chestnut trees. And higher the stately beech trees that cover and protect the mountains; here, the perfumes of the mountain are perceived where the rare Maple of the Lobel is often met ( Acer lobelii ). Even higher, in the dense kingdom of silence of the tall cliffs and the peaks of the Alburni Mountains, of the Cervati, of the Motola, of the Bulgheria there live the very rare " Crespino" of the Etna ( Berberis aetnensis ) endemic Saxifrage of the center-southern Apennine (as Saxifrage paniculata subsp. stabiana, Saxifrage ampullacea and the rare Saxifrage porophilla ) the Aubrieta columnae subsp. columnae , the Centaurees of mountain and others rare species. But there is also the presence of some more common plants, also diffused elsewhere and well-known, which here acquires a remarkable phyto-geographic importance: the small spontaneous groves of Birch trees ( Betula pendula ), the white fir ( Abies alba ) and the Boxwood ( Buxus sempervirens ) and Eastern Plane tree autochthonous of the outskirts of Velia.

The Fauna

The fauna of the National Park of the Cilento and Vallo of Diano is very diversified according to the large variety of environments present on the territory. Coastal and mountain areas, impetuous rivers and brooks, cliffs and forests, determine many fauna communities in which the presence of species of high naturalistic value often emerges. On the peaks, on the altitude grasslands and on the cliffs there are the bald eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos ) and its favorite preys: the Coturnix ( Alectoris graeca ) and the Appennini Hare ( Lepus corsicanus ). The presence of these two last species is biologically important because they represent Apennine autochthonous populations, extinct in most of the territory. The eagle shares this environment with other predatory birds as the wandering Hawk ( Falco peregrinus ), the Lanario ( Falco biarmicus ), the imperial Crow ( Corvus corax ) and the coral grackle ( Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax ). Among the pastures it is easy to observe the field mouse of the Savi ( Microtus savii ), a small herbivorous rodent plundered by the Fox ( Vulpes vulpes ), by the Marten ( Martes martes ) and also by the Wolf ( Canis lupus ) species this last whose population seems to be in light increase. Among the same lawns, kingdom of numerous species of butterflies, the Wall Lizard ( Podarcis muralis ) and the Luscengola ( Chalcides chalcides ) live peculiar for its resemblance with a small snake but from which it differs for the presence of small arts. Among the rich avifauna of the forests of beech tree the most typical species are the black Woodpecker ( Drycopus martius ), the Mason Woodpecker ( Sitta europaea ) and the Bullfinch ( Pyrrhula pyrrhula ), while of high interest is the presence of the Astor ( Accipiter gentilis ) rapacious bird whose distribution is in decline. On the tall trees mammalians also live as the Dormouse ( Myoxus glis ) or Quercino ( Eliomys quercinus ), while others small rodents attend dens dug between the roots, as in the case of the reddish field-mouse ( Clethrionomys glareolus ), or among the small clearings in the forest as the wild Mouse ( Apodemus sylvaticus ) and the Mouse with the yellow neck ( Apodemus flavicolis ). These small rodents are among the favorite preys of the wild Cat ( Felis silvestris ), whose presence represents another naturalistic element of high interest. On the bark of the trees a rare bug lives: the alpine coleopteron Rosalia , species of European importance. Very rich it is also the fauna of watercourses where no doubt the population of otters ( Lutra lutra ), perhaps the richest in Italy, dominates. In the areas closest to water sources, where water is colder, more constant and the thick woods provide abundant shade, there live the rare Salamander with the glasses ( Salamandrina terdigitata ), Italian endemism of high naturalistic interest and the most common Salamander ( Salamander Salamander ). In sites with clearer water rich of oxygen there abound the Trout ( salmo macrostigma ) and the water Blackbird ( Cinclus cinclus ), along the banks there are frequent small stilt-birds as well the small Messenger ( Charadrius dubius ) while in the small puddles the italic Frog , the Adamantine Frog , the Ululone from the yellow abdomen ( Bombina pachypu ) and the Toad ( Bufo bufo ); among the rocky gorges the rare Harrier Eagle ( Circaetus gallicus ) rapacious of big dimensions primarily of some reptiles that frequent the Park. Among these last there are the rural Lizard ( Podarcis sicula ), the Green Lizard ( Lacerta viridis ), the Cervone ( Elaphe quatuorlineata ) the Columber ( Coluber viridjflavus ), the Viper ( Viper aspis ) and the Natrice ( Natrix natrix ).