Abstract
The characterization of natural and cultural heritage using popular entertainment, such as TV movies and series, can become an effective and original way to involve society in protecting territory and enhancing local development, thanks to the dissemination of knowledge. The aim is to make the complex aspects of landscape related to its geological and ecological assessment understandable to the public. The tools here proposed are the episodes of the TV series “Inspector Montalbano” filmed in Sicily. The stories, written by Andrea Camilleri, are located in Sicily (the biggest Italian island in the southern Mediterranean Sea), in particular with some World Heritage Sites. The natural and cultural landscapes, which provide fascinating scenery to the films, represent a meaning in the representation of the plot. At the same time, if recognized and understood, they become part of the cultural heritage of each component of the local community and of society. The cognitive process activates a virtuous circle revitalizing the links between humanity and environment. Moreover, it promotes a creative participation of the public in new policies, oriented towards sustainable development, and tourism—especially geotourism and ecotourism—becomes an important resource, especially in these times of crisis.
Highlights
Each individual landscape, studied at different scales, shows distinctive elements: structural, which depend on physical form and specific spatial organization; functional, which depend on relationships created between biotic and abiotic elements; and dynamic, which depend on the successive evolution of the structure [17]
The methodology takes into consideration all the components of landscape, integrating the information according to the landscape ecology theories, which consider landscape as the result of interaction among physical, biological and anthropic phenomena acting in a different spatial-temporal scale [22,23,24,25,26,27,28]
We propose a structured program to highlight, from the geological, naturalistic, and territorial points of view, the places of significance in the history of cinema, analyzing their structure and origins, with particular attention to those of high landscape value and/or of particular territorial fragility
Summary
A correct approach to territorial and environmental analysis should follow holistic criteria, since specialized research, where the descriptive picture of environmental components becomes more detailed, at times loses sight of the primary elements and objectives. The physical qualities of landscape (the substratum that interacts with the biotic components that rest on it), deserve appropriate consideration, for both scientific and management reasons. There is no real separation between geological and biological processes: geology is part of all natural systems [1]. The question of understanding and protecting our geological heritage has led to a scientific debate in recent years in Europe, which has provided various indications about methods and criteria for evaluating sites of geological interest
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