PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The Campo dei Fiori regional park, within which three proposed Sites of Community Interest have been identified, protects a pre-Alpine mountainous area of calcareous and porphyritic substrate. Karst phenomena have created an extensive system of underground grottoes and caves which are of difficult access and which house colonies of bats such as Myotis emarginatus and bechsteini and Miniopterus schreibersi. Apart from the rock formations, which provide nesting sites for peregrine falcons and which support interesting communities of rock flora, there are forest habitats (beech woods and alluvial alder forests), where black kites and goshawks nest. Finally, there are semi-natural grasslands, xerophilous oak woods and petrifying springs which account for the presence of an exceptional formation of travertine, the largest in the province of Varese. Threats to the sites stem from the impact of tourism in the caves, the abstraction of spring water, the silting of the small, but significant, wet environments for amphibians, the abandonment of forestry practices and the exploitation of the meadows used by bats as feeding areas.
OBJECTIVES
This project is a continuation of a similar LIFE project (LIFE96 NAT/IT/003075). It provides for a series of actions to conserve the habitats and species of Community interest which can be found at the sites. Among the major actions scheduled is the renaturalisation of approximately 3 ha of a site from which water has been abstracted, by restoring conditions which favour colonisation by the Cratoneurion species and relaunching the natural travertine formation process. For the bats, structures will be erected aimed at reducing the impact of tourism in the caves and rocky habitats, some of the major wetlands will be restored to enable the bats to forage, action to manage the meadow habitats will be carried out and the bat and amphibian populations will be monitored. Finally, management plans will be drawn up for each of the sites, as will an action plan to protect the petrifying springs, and environmental awareness and education campaigns will be carried out.
