The National Park of Cilento

Province of Salerno – Region of Campania – 80 communes – 250.000 inhabitants – 8 communities in mountain areas

The park area – 181.048 ha

The National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano is the second largest park in Italy and it surely represents one of the most important bio-geographical complexes of Southern Italy. Its peculiar geographical position, its coasts, watercourses and mountain massifs grant to the territory a diversified orography manifested in a remarkable variety of the environments. Cilento is a land of soft, hilly morphologies, covered by rows of green olive trees that get reflected in the blue waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea and, at the same time, it is a land of very rough morphologies, deeply incised by its lively streams, a land full of chestnut and holm-oak woods, with little villages attached to the rocks or laid on the shores.
The Park and the sites of Paestum and Velia are on the UNESCO list of the World Patrimony. Moreover, the park, the only one in Italy to be considered both natural and cultural good, is recognized by the UNESCO as “Biosphere Supply” and it has been introduced into the exclusive program MAB (Man and Biosphere) for to guarantee the maintenance of this precious bio-geographical system.

Flora and vegetation
The floristic population of the Park counts around 1800 various species of native spontaneous plants, of which ca. 10 per cent are endemic or rare ones. The most known and probably the most important is the Primrose of Palinuro (Primula Palinuri), the symbol of the Park. On the beaches, among the sand communities, one can still find the rarely seen marine lily, while the plant groupings on the numerous coast cliffs consist of precious endemic plants such as the Primrose of  Palinuro, the gillyflower, the centaury, the Campanula of Naples etc. which give the coast landscape its extraordinary beauty. The arid Mediterranean zone, kingdom of the multiform and polychrome maquis, is enriched by the Broom of Cilento, the carob, the juniper, limbs of ilex groves and the Aleppo Pine groves. In the coast area, in particular, the tissue of the evergreen woods and the maquis is permeated by olive groves, gardens nearly natural, that get mixed and integrated into the warm nature of the Cilento coasts.
On the highest levels and in the inland there are oak trees, maples, lime trees, elms, ash trees and chestnut trees. Seldom it is possible to find the rare Maple of Nobel. Even higher, in the silent kingdom of high rocks, there lives the rarest barberry of Etna. Also the presence of several common plants, like the spontaneous groves of birch, sliver fir and box, results particularly fascinating here.

Fauna
The fauna of the Park is very diversified thanks to the large variety of the environments on the territory. The coast and mountain areas, the rushing streams and rivers, the cliffs and the forests, all these determinate the same number of fauna communities, which frequently hide some species of high naturalistic value. At the peaks, on the mountain  meadows and the cliffs one can observe the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and its favourite prey – the Greek partridge and the hare. Among other birds of prey there are the peregrine, the lanner, the raven and the chough. On the meadows you can easily find the mouse of Savi, a small rodent preyed upon by the fox, the marten and the wolf. On these meadows, kingdom of numerous butterfly species, there live the wall-lizard and the serpent-lizard. The most typical species of the rich avifauna in the beech forests are the woodpecker, the nuthatch and the bullfinch. Particularly interesting is the presence of the goshawk, a bird of prey whose population is in decline. On the trees one can observe the presence of some mammals such as the dormouse, while other small rodents prefer the lairs excavated in the ground among the roots. On the tree bark lives a rare insect – a beetle called Rosalia alpina, a species very precious in Europe. Also the fauna of the watercourses is very rich, doubtlessly dominated by the otter population. In the cold waters near the springs several salamander species can be found. In the places with clear waters rich in oxygen there are numerous populations of trouts and dippers.
Among the rocky gorges there is the rare harrier eagle, an enormous bird of prey that feeds on the reptiles of the Park such as the natrix, the viper, the coluber and the green lizard.

The coast
The Park borders on a third of the coasts of Campania. Their morphology is very diversified, alternating wonderful beaches (more frequent in the northern part) with the rocky promontories, cliffs and sea overhangs, marked off by little green inlets of the maquis, junipers and pines. The diversified geological nature of the territory causes a big variety of the profile and the orography of the coasts, which seems softer in the north (from Agropoli to Palinuro) and rougher, inaccessible and wild in the area from Capo Palinuro to Scario, in the southern territory. Along the latter zone, dominated in the south by the spur of Monte Bulgheria (1225 m), numerous Karstic processes had opened countless caves, sometimes flooded by the sea which had partly remodelled their original structure, enriching them with lights, colours and erosion phenomena. Besides, in the Azure Grotto of Palinuro, the refraction phenomena can be observed, which give the water its unforgettable azure colour. There lives a peculiar marine fauna bound to the undersea thermal waters of sulphureous type. All the caves contain traces of pre-historical visitors.