Foreword and Acknowledgements

Annals of Geophysics: Ad Majora

“…Recent special issues include volume 55 (3), 2012, on Geoethics and geological culture. Reflections from the Geoitalia Conference 2011 [Peppoloni and Di Capua 2012] with a collection of papers presented during the 'Geoethics' scientific session at the 8th Italian Forum of Earth Sciences that was held in September 2011 in Turin, Italy, and volume 55 (6), 2012, entitled 5th European Repeat Station (MagNetE) Workshop Rome, Italy 2011 [De Michelis and Duma 2012] which contains a subset of the scientific results presented at the 2011 MagNetE symposium. One of the next goal will be to re-organize the publication of special volumes focused onto scientific topics that are generally considered as top-arguments in the fields of geophysics and volcanology.…”

“Geo-Archaeo-Routes” on the Island of Lemnos: The “Nalture” Experience as a Holistic Geotouristic Approach within the Geoethical Perspective

“…The massive touristic exploitation and malpractices unavoidably leave negative marks on the natural environment as many anthropogenic impacts on geosites may lead to their irreversible degradation [17]. The responsible management of geosites and their protection can be achieved only by applying the values of geoethics that raise awareness and responsibility on geological heritage conservation, and stress out the important link with geoenvironmental education activities [18,19], towards a holistic geotouristic approach. As pointed out by [20], it is only through a geoethical perspective that geotourism can contribute to our understanding of the Earth as a system, through the relationships that bind the parts to the whole, thus linking people with their land [18,19].…”

“…The environmentally friendly anthropogenic imprint on the geoenvironment, associated with archaeological sites and monuments, museums and religious sites, as well as the sustainable production of local goods of agriculture and wine-growing, plays a major role in fostering the cultural education of tourist masses together with the respect for the natural capital of geotopes in a geoethical perspective, which is actually linked to the rational use of nonrenewable resources. Apparently, geotourism activities minimize their environmental impacts and avoid the risk of exceeding the threshold of ecological and social sustainability only when guided by the geoethical principles that, besides increasing awareness for sustainable geoheritage management, also foster the public's understanding of natural hazards, such as climate change, sea level rise and flooding [18,19,21]. With the values of geoethics, the integration between geodiversity and cultural resources is able to develop the needed sense of responsibility for preserving geoheritage, not only for the enjoyability of the present communities but also for assuring its existence for the future generations [15,22].…”