La Rete ecologica della Regione Toscana: tra biodiversità e storia del territorio

Abstract

Land consumption processes in alluvial plains and abandonment of agricultural and breeding activities in mountain areas, both of which result in the loss of agricultural land, are today the major threats to biodiversity in Tuscany. These processes result in an increase in environmental fragmentation in the plain and in the homogenisation of mountain landscapes. The Project for a Tuscan ecological network, as an invariant element of the Regional landscape Plan, is a new tool to counteract such dynamics, highlighting the remarkable naturalistic interest of traditional agricultural landscapes. In the context of biodiversity conservation policies, the ecological network also highlights the need to overcome the 'protected islands' approach by using planning tools apt to improve the levels of quality and widespread permeability of the regional territorial ecosystem.