International Workshop “Biodiversity, Landscape and Life Quality. Protected Areas for Urban Sustainability and Resilience”

In the framework of a long time cooperation between the two research
groups the CED PPN-DIST and the NEReGRO (New Regional Development in
Protected Areas research group) was organized a recent shared initiatives:
an International Workshop about “Biodiversity, Landscape and Life Quality.
Protected Areas for Urban Sustainability and Resilience”. The workshop
was also included among the events of the PoliTO Sustainability Week 2018,
an initiative promoted by the Politecnico of Turin to promote actions for sustainability,
with particular reference to the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
Speakers from Europe and national met to discuss the topic, bringing reflections
and experiences useful to define a current theme as critical.
The international workshop investigates the relationship between Protected
Areas (PAs) and human settlements, with specific reference to urban areas.
Due to the progressive spreading of land-take processes and to the intense
growth of PAs, today in Europe PA policies are increasingly confronted by urbanization
processes. An alliance between PAs and “Cities”, as challenging
as it may be, is thus needed, both in favour of PAs and urban contexts. This
objective entails some underlying and more general issues such as the relationship
between PA Plans and urban and regional Plans, the need for a landscape
approach in PA planning, the need for co-management approaches,
the PA effectiveness. The initiave is specifically relatated to the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and in particolar: SDG11 (Sustainable cities and
communities), SDG15 (Life on land), SDG3 (Good health and well-being).
Following the WS, it was organized on the 6th of June a trip at the Nature
Regional Park La Mandria (Parchi Reali Board) one of the Parchi Reali protected
areas network, a significant example of periurban Park situated in the
Turin metropolitan area and an opportunity to check criticalities, opportunities
and challenges of planning and management policies in this kind of PAs.
The WS was organized by the European Documentation Centre on Nature
Park Planning (CED PPN, DIST) and the New Regional Development in
Protected Areas research group (NEReGRO group, Universities of Oldenburg
- DE; Bern - CH; Rapperswil - CH; Vienna - AT), with the support of the School
of Specialization in Architectural and Landscape Heritage (Politecnico di
Torino) and the Management Authority of Parchi Reali. In collaboration with
INU and the Responsible Risk Resilience Centre - Politecnico di Torino (R3C).

Scientific Commette: Angioletta Voghera, Emma Salizzoni, Gabriella Negrini, Ingo Mose, Thomas Hammer, Dominik Siegrist, Norbert Weixlbaumer