Planning of protected areas as a mean of addressing concepts of resilience and sustainability

Nowadays, protected areas aim at protecting biodiversity, at mitigating the effects of climate change and at providing ecosystem services. Within the Italian normative context, protected areas are ruled by the Law no. 394/1991 “Framework law on protected areas”. Moreover, in compliance with the Law enacted by Decree no. 112/1998 regional and local administrations have administrative functions in terms of regional protected areas. From this theoretical and normative framework, protected areas should be managed and planned in relation to the coevolution between natural and socioeconomic systems in which they are included. On the other hand, the gap between theoretical definition and implementation of policies and strategies defined at national and regional level, has entailed some problems in terms of planning and development of these areas. The study aims at defining a methodological approach to manage protected areas at regional level, by defining a system of conceptual relations between sustainable–oriented objectives and objectives oriented towards regional development in relation to two case studies concerning Sardinia and Liguria.