Stelvio

Dealing with the topic of acceptance of nature conservation measures, in general, is not a new approach. From its beginning, nature conservation endeavors to gain the willingness of the population to accept and support the aims and tasks of nature conservation. Acceptance of nature conservation may mean that nature conservation occupies an appropriate place in the social system of values, even by following the involved legal rules and norms. Acceptance, however, may also mean that a conservation area is seen as useful and advantageous. For the acceptance of a conservation area it is of fundamental importance to know the attitude of the residents and to involve the population in conservation actions.

The Stelvio National Park belongs together with the National Parks Gran Paradiso, Abruzzo and Circeo to the four historical National Parks of Italy, all of which have been founded during the first part of the 20th century. The Stelvio National Park, in particular, has been pushed through in the year 1935 without any consultation of the population and partly against strong objections.

The park area borders on the Swiss National Park, the Nature Park Adamello-Brenta, and the Regional Park Adamello and is thus of great strategic importance regarding its location in the centre of the Alps. The Stelvio National Park area extends over two autonomous provinces (Bolzano and Trentino) and one region (Lombardy). Since 1995, the three sections of the Park have been managed for twenty years by a unified consortium, a unique form of administration of conservation areas in Italy.

In 2001 Eurac led a project with the aim to analyze the acceptance of the park by the local population and by tourists. The questionnaire comprised the following topics: Attitude to nature, effects of the National Park on various groups of people and forms of land-use, relevance of and satisfaction with the National Park authorities, potential of conflicts. These topics have been dealt with in 32 groups of questions. 1,100 residents were surveyed (personal, face-to-face interviews) within the entire National Park.

As in November 2007 the implementation for a zoning of the Stelvio National Park was completed and in 2015 the whole competences and responsibilities have been delegated from national level to the local authorities, it is time to investigate how far these changes have influenced the attitude of the local population. The present project aims at repeating the same representative survey, in order to compare its results with those from almost 20 years ago.