0000000001329542
AUTHOR
Fabrizio Frascaroli
Shrines in Central Italy conserve plant diversity and large trees
Sacred natural sites (SNS) are instances of biocultural landscapes protected for spiritual motives. These sites frequently host important biological values in areas of Asia and Africa, where traditional resource management is still upheld by local communities. In contrast, the biodiversity value of SNS has hardly been quantitatively tested in Western contexts, where customs and traditions have relatively lost importance due to modernization and secularization. To assess whether SNS in Western contexts retain value for biodiversity, we studied plant species composition at 30 SNS in Central Italy and compared them with a paired set of similar but not sacred reference sites. We demonstrate tha…
An overview of international legal and institutional frameworks for promoting community action in conservation
In much of the conservation discourse, the interests of humans and biodiversity are still presented as conflicting, in a relationship where satisfying the needs of one would come to the detriment of the other. This trade-off ideology has been at the basis of the, for instance, fences and fines approaches to conservation, and in the most extreme cases has led to the creation of protected areas by evicting indigenous peoples and local communities, irrespectively of their actual impacts on the local environment. Emerging approaches informed by the notions of community-based conservation and biocultural diversity have advanced alternative (yet age-old) ways of understanding the relationship bet…
Abandonment or ambition: Sustaining nature and society through pastoralism in 21st century Abruzzo, Italy
The abandonment of rural and peripheral areas has been a dominant trend in Southern Europe since the rapid modernization of the 1960s. At the social level, this trend is leading to the disintegration of local communities and loss of traditional cultural heritage. At the ecological level, it is driving land use changes that threaten elements of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, which depend on human management. A human activity that is tightly intertwined with biodiversity patterns and processes is open-range animal husbandry. Here, we present a successful experience in sustaining this practice, with the relative social and ecological benefits, within the area of the National Park of A…