The Apennines run the length of Italy like a spine, and they are the wild interior of a country famous for its cities. Behind the Tuscan hills and the Umbrian valleys rise beech forests and high limestone massifs where the Marsican brown bear, a subspecies down to perhaps fifty animals, still lives in the Abruzzo. Wolves, never fully exterminated here, have used these mountains as the reservoir from which they have recolonised half of Europe.
The defining process in this landscape is abandonment. The mountain villages have been emptying since the war, the terraces and pastures are reverting to scrub and forest, and Italy is quietly rewilding by default. That is good for the bear and the wolf and terrible for the meadow flowers and the species that needed open ground, and it makes the management question genuinely difficult.
The organizations here protect the last bears with an urgency the numbers demand, manage the return of the wolf in a country of livestock and strong opinions, and try to hold the mosaic of the old agricultural landscape without pretending the people are coming back.
Environmental Organizations in This Bioregion
19 organizations working across this landscape.
A Sud - Ecologia e Cooperazione
Our mission is to build instruments of impact (pressure, incidence, strengthening of social demands and struggles) for environmental and climate activists and commun...
Azione contro la Fame
International humanitarian organization specialized in "Zero Hunger" interventions, connected to climate change, clean water access and sustainable agriculture.
Cittadini per l'aria (Citizens for Air)
Citizens for Air aims at raising awareness and public understanding of the crucial interaction between air pollution and climate change and thus the attention on the...
Comitato Opzione Zero APS
Opzione Zero is a grassroot movement of citizens who take care of their high degraded territory , some of us with specific academic knowledges. We organize actions...
Ecotòno APS
Preserve & regen ecosystems, promote socio-environmentally sustainable lifestyles. Permaculture Design approach to increase resilience, participation&adaptation
Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus
Established in 1989 in Milan, Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus (FBAO) is a legal entity that coordinates and guides Banco Alimentare (BA), composed of 21 regional F...
Io non ho paura del Lupo
Through our activism we want to promote the conservation of the wolf on Italian territory, improving its acceptance among the stakeholders who have to coexist with i...
Istituto Oikos
Istituto Oikos is an independent, non-religious organisation. It was founded in 1996 in Milan. Since then, we have devised and developed over 350 projects in Ital...
Mountain Wilderness Italia
Mountain Wilderness Italia is a 1% for the Planet nature nonprofit partner associated with biodiversity & wildlife. Based in Mestre, Venice, Italy, it is included in...
One Ocean Foundation
Italian non-profit organization dedicated to marine environment preservation, internationally recognized.
SEA SHEPHERD ITALIA ONLUS
La missione di Sea Shepherd Italia é quella di fermare la distruzione dell’habitat naturale e il massacro delle specie selvatiche negli oceani del mondo intero al fi...
SLOW FOOD ITALIA APS
L’Associazione nasce con l’obiettivo di promuovere una nuova cultura del cibo e dell’alimentazione. L’Associazione riconosce, come riferimento valoriale, i principi ...
Worldrise ONLUS
Worldrise dreams and strives for a world where people are (re)connected to the sea and actively engaged in its conservation. The heart of our mission is a call to ac...
World Sustainability Foundation (WSF)
Protects biodiversity, supports local communities, fights climate change, and raises awareness through conservation projects and sustainable teambuilding trips