Priority Zones for Mediterranean protected agro sylvo pastoral landscapes

Abstract

The conservation of Mediterranean protected agro sylvo pastoral landscapes very often has to reconcile conflicting forces related to socio-economic interests on the one hand and the needs of biodiversity protection on the other. These latter can be relevant in defining the environmental ranges and the biological constraints on which a sustainable use of protected landscapes should be developed. In this regard, the design of protected areas and their zoning play a pivotal role determining where and which activities should or should not be carried out. This paper considers two neighbouring parks in southern Italy, both characterized by large expanses of Mediterranean steppe grasslands and inhabited by the largest Italian population of the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni). In the study area, the lesser kestrels nest mainly in the historical centres of the towns surrounding the parks and feed in large open areas occupied mainly by cereal crops and steppe grasslands. Given the ecological role and the high conservation value of the lesser kestrel, the design of the two parks should encompass those areas needed to preserve the local population. In order to determine whether steppe variables (amount and types, at different distances from nest sites) were significant predictors of the colony sizes (dependent variables) of the lesser kestrel, a multiple linear regression analysis was conducted. The analysis showed colony size to be correlated significantly with the amount of steppe within a radius of 7.5 km of the nesting site. On the basis of these results, we identified and delimited in each park the so-called “Priority Zones”, that is the zones that should be the major focus of conservation efforts. We then compared the boundaries of these “Priority Zones” with those of the parks, as they were already defined, highlighting the implications for biodiversity conservation.