Abstract:Ecosystem services in forests of Calabria: stakeholders' perception. In the last decades, the ecological, economic and social analysis of benefits provided by ecosystem to society has coved a great importance in the scientific international literature. The main studies focuses on three aspects: ecosystem services potential supply, demand and use. The potential supply is defined as the ecosystem biophysical capacity to supply services, while the demand represents the amount of service desired by the society. The third aspect considers the current use of a ecosystem service in order to satisfy the social demand. This study focused on the evaluation of social demand on ecosystem services provided by forests at local level (Calabria region) under the project "ALForLab". The main objective of the present study is to analyze the stakeholders' opinions and preferences of forest sector in Calabria Region about relevance of forest ecosystem services and categories of ecosystem services. The study, conducted in four areas (Pollino, Sila, Catena Costiera and Serre Calabre), was structured in three steps: (i) identification and classification of stakeholders (stakeholder analysis); (ii) administration of a questionnaire to the previously identified stakeholders; (iii) statistical analysis of the data collected by questionnaire. Stakeholders' opinions and preferences were analyzed in order to highlight the differences between study areas and groups of stakeholders. At the end of the stakeholder analysis, 320 stakeholders were identified and contacted, 71 of whom filled in the questionnaire (response rate of 22%). The results show that the two main categories of ecosystem services are the supporting services and regulating services. According to the stakeholders' opinions the three most important forest ecosystem services are: biodiversity, landscape and hydrogeological protection. Landscape is particularly important because it is strictly linked to the cultural value and social identity of a territory. This survey show that the characteristics and peculiarities of each study area are the main factors that influence the stakeholders' preferences on single elements of the landscape. In the study areas characterized by a high natural value (Pollino, Sila and Serre Calabre) the stakeholders consider the natural elements of the landscape (forests and water bodies) as the most important, while in the most urbanized study area (Catena Costiera) the anthropic and cultural elements have a key importance. Finally, the stakeholders consider the forest fires, the illegal cuttings and the forest management abandonment the three main important threat factors to forests functionality in Calabria.
The search for well-being in natural environments: a case study in the Covid-19 era Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed lifestyles in relation with the external environment, in particular nature. The permanence in natural environments, the relationship with the outside and with the green that surrounds us reveal, in general, important elements of personal and collective well-being, both during the usual daily life but also and above all in the current pandemic crisis, that has dramatically changed everyone's life habits and has disrupted interpersonal relationships and the relationship with the outdoor world, often observed from a window. As part of the CNR FOE-Nutrage project "Nutrizione, Alimentazione e Invecchiamento attivo", subtask 3.6.4 "Well-being search in natural environments", a case study was conducted with the aim of investigating, through desk analysis and field surveys, the relationship between the environment and well-being on a sample of people over 65 years of ageconsidered at high risk during the current COVID-19 pandemicresiding mainly in Calabria (southern Italy) and Lombardia (northern Italy). The overall vision integrated good lifestyles and permanence in natural environments with the perspective of disease prevention and maintenance of the psycho-physical health. Results showed that the sample interviewed, despite having changed during the lockdown of March-April 2020 the type of environment frequented and reduced the time spent outside, did not give up walking, attending outdoor spaces and taking care of the house greenery (plants and terraces) for their psycho-physical well-being. The study is part of a vision extensively investigated by the scientific literature on the influence of environmental factors on the psycho-physical well-being of people, and, in particular, on the importance of ecosystem services and of the "Green-care".
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