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The most effective way to fully protect nature and conserve it is through planned protection measures organised at state level. The amount of Italian territory under state protection in one way or another is 10%. Environmental protection laws have allowed many nature parks and reserves to be opened which are used solely for developing nature in all of its forms. In the Italian parks and nature reserves, therefore, not only are the animals untouchable but also the plants, minerals, water and even the air.

Italy has 23 National Parks, 89 Regional Parks, 270 Regional Reserves, 142 State Reserves, 47 Marsh reserves and 7 Marine Reserves, which are protected zones managed either by the State in some form - Regional Councils, Provincial Councils and Municipalities - or by the environmental and protection associations such as Italia Nostra, WWF, Lega Ambiente, Greenpeace, LIPU, Touring Club, etc. The National Parks are: Abruzzo (the oldest, officially opened in September 1922), Gran Paradiso (opened a few months after the Abruzzo park), Circeo, Stelvio, Calabria, Pollino, Monti Sibillini, Archipelago Tuscany, the Caserta Forests, the Belluno Dolomite mountains, Aspromonte, Cilento-Valle di Diano, Gargano, Gran Sasso-Laga, Maiella, Val Grande, Vesuvius, and Gennargentu-Asinara-Golfo di Orosei, Alta Murgia, Appennino Tosco-Emiliano, Arcipelago La Maddalena, Cinqueterre, Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona, Campigna. We have listed all of them to show how in Italy Nature is loved and protected as much in the North as in the South.

What better reason, then, for planning a trip to at least one of Italy's "natural" attractions?

BEST LINKS ABOUT NATURAL PARKS AND NATURE IN ITALY

Ministero dell'Ambiente Corpo Forestale www.parks.it WWF UK

Parks.it - Parks, Reserves and other Protected Areas