ABSTRACT
Green areas provide Cultural Ecosystem Services (CESs), that is, the ecosystem outputs that enable a range of experiential and intellectual activities. These include health promotion, recreation, enjoyment of the cultural heritage, and aesthetic experiences. The demand for CESs has grown during the first half of 2020, when most of the EU Member States had to face a stringent lockdown to contain the spread of the Covid-19, and people have undergone considerable psychophysical distress. In this framework, the Garden of Ninfa, one of the most visited Gardens of Italy, with its natural, historical, and architectural beauties delivers precious CESs, which have however been poorly studied. In this research, through a survey, we investigated the CESs delivered by the Garden of Ninfa in the immediate post-lockdown period, providing at the same time a monetary evaluation. The results show that people mostly visit the Garden of Ninfa for the aesthetic experience, followed by the resonance in terms of culture or heritage and health promotion;the combination of water bodies and fauna is highly effective in delivering CESs. The monetary evaluation, ranging between 1.0 and 2.7 Million EUR per year, may stimulate the replication of similar initiatives, especially in highly altered areas. The safety measures put in place by the governance of the Garden of Ninfa have safeguarded the tour experience from the Covid-19 fear of infection.
ABSTRACT
Protected areas (PAs) are thought by some to contribute to local wellbeing and socioeconomic development, whereas for others PAs remain a regulatory burden that hampers rural development. Here, we sought to ascertain the perceived causes of rural depopulation and the potential impact of four Natura 2000 sites on the wellbeing and depopulation figures of four protected rural municipalities in Spain that were selected as extreme case studies. We used phone surveys to elicit experts’ views (n = 19) on the topic and convened eight in-person workshops to garner local residents’ insights (n = 40) using structured questionnaires. We complemented perceived wellbeing data from PAs with surveys to residents in neighbouring unprotected municipalities (n = 28). Both experts and workshops’ attendees from protected municipalities overwhelmingly attributed depopulation figures to structural causes linked to transport accessibility, basic service provision and the existence of job opportunities, which they perceived to be unrelated to the PAs’ regulations or management. Local residents did generally not perceive any impact on their collective or individual wellbeing from those PAs, and most who did, expressed a negative impact chiefly due to socioeconomic restrictions. Four-fifths of the experts and half of the workshops’ attendees from protected municipalities, however, expressed that PAs’ administrations could help improve depopulation figures in their towns mainly through promoting tourism and greater compatibility of land uses, including housing and infrastructure development. While the assessed Natura 2000 sites certainly have scope for tourism promotion, their lenient legal regimes make it largely unfeasible to broaden land use compatibility without damaging protected features.
ABSTRACT
The artificial light at night (ALAN) present in many cities and towns has a negative impact on numerous organisms that live alongside humans, including bats. Therefore, we investigated if the artificial illumination of the historic Wisloujscie Fortress in Gdansk, Poland (part of the Natura 2000 network), during nighttime events, which included an outdoor electronic dance music (EDM) festival, might be responsible for increased light pollution and the decline in recent years of the pond bat (Myotis dasycneme). An assessment of light pollution levels was made using the methods of geographical information system (GIS) and free-of-charge satellite remote sensing (SRS) technology. Moreover, this paper reviewed the most important approaches for environmental protection of bats in the context of ecological light pollution, including International, European, and Polish regulatory frameworks. The analysis of this interdisciplinary study confirmed the complexity of the problem and highlighted, too, the need for better control of artificial illumination in such sensitive areas. It also revealed that SRS was not the best light pollution assessment method for this particular case study due to several reasons listed in this paper. As a result, the authors' proposal for improvements also involved practical recommendations for devising suitable strategies for lighting research and practice in the Natura 2000 Wisloujscie Fortress site located adjacent to urban areas to reduce the potential negative impact of ALAN on bats and their natural habitats.