Side Event
La Mappa della Primavera (Map of Spring)
Organizer
LEGAMBIENTE onlus
Date and Time
15 February 2008 13:15 - 14:45
Meeting
Second meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Protected Areas (WGPA 2)
Monitoring vegetation in Italian protected areas: this is the aim of the project La Mappa della Primavera (Map of Spring), supported by and with the patronage of the Italian Ministry for Environment and Safeguarding of Territory and Sea, and carried out by Federparchi, Legambiente and Coldiretti with the scientific expertise of the University “La Sapienza” in Rome. The project’s aim is to collect and derive useful information on the variation of the climatic condition through the monitoring of the development of some plant species that are typical of the Italian landscape. Considering the strict relation between climate and the plant growth (flowering, foliation, fruit maturation), La Mappa della Primavera represents an interesting test in order to better understand the climatic alterations seen during the past few years and their effects on plants. La Mappa della Primavera is being carried out by monitoring at regular times the state of development of some species that have been chosen as markers. The survey method consists in the registration of the date and place where the phenomenon is observed. The phytophenologic survey is done by registering the degree of flowering and of the development of leaf and fruit of the species using numeric codes. The project is being realised in Italian natural protected areas that have been selected to represent the three biogeographic Italian regions, that are the Alpine Region, the Continental Region and the Mediterranean Region. In each protected areas sampling points have been identified far from one another and that are representative of the different environments found in the protected areas. The monitoring allows to control periodically the degree of development of the different species, and the survey data are collected in a database in order to describe the timing of the phenophases in the marker species. La Mappa della Primavera is also a project that carries out the promotion of the Natura 2000 Network, the main European instrument for biodiversity conservation, made up by Sites of Community Importance and Special Protection Areas. To this purpose the sampling points have been identified inside Natural Parks, Regional Parks and Regional natural Reserves that contain or have relations with SCIs or SPAs. La Mappa della Primavera was the first Italian initiative to be included in the “Countdown 2010” campaign, promoted by The World Conservation Union for the promotion of all the activities aimed at halting the loss of biodiversity by the year 2010. The initiative allows a deep discussion about climate change and their effects on biodiversity