Campania Parks

Protected Areas represent a resource in terms of naturalistic, cultural, touristic and economic values, by virtue of their numerous naturalistic and landscape qualities, which make them a benchmark for the policies for environmental protection and for the promotion of sustainable development realized by Regione Campania.

As a matter of fact, in the light also of the national regulations’ dispositions and of the principles of the European Union included in the 5th Environmental Action Programme, they represent the optimal places in which Regione Campania implements its policies for territory conservation and planning, with the purpose of combining the need for development and the primary need for conservation, aiming at their harmonious, and therefore long-lasting, coexistence.

There are two types of protected areas: parks and reserves.

While reserves are made of a smaller, homogeneous space, parks include areas that “represent a homogeneous system characterised by the natural layouts of the places, by landscape and artistic values and by the cultural traditions of the local populations”.

Going beyond law’s definitions, parks represent the areas where nature is better preserved both in our region and more generally in our peninsula.

Parks have been instituted in order to protect areas where anthropic impact was gradually moving forward, producing devastating effects – if not stopped in time – on delicate and precious environments, whose integrity it was necessary to guarantee. This also means realizing a series of initiatives to restore the compromised equilibriums, in order to foster the recovery of the natural processes, to educate the inhabitants and the users of these resources on a “sustainable” relationship with the natural environment.

In Campania there are two national parks:

• Il Parco del Cilento e Vallo di Diano
• Il Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio

1 metropolitan park:

• Il Parco metropolitano delle colline di Napoli

8 regional parks:

• Parco Regionale dei Campi flegrei
• Parco Regionale dei Monti Lattari
• Parco Regionale del Bacino idrografico del fiume Sarno
• Parco Regionale del Matese
• Parco Regionale di Roccamonfina e Foce del Garigliano
• Parco Regionale dei Monti Picentini
• Parco Regionale del Partenio
• Parco Regionale del Taburno Camposauro