Paper short abstract:

In this paper I intend to discuss some aspects related to the processes of park making and the challenges faced by the park authorities in the management of the Tepilora, Sant'Anna and Rio Posada Regional Natural Park.

Paper long abstract:

The Tepilora, Sant'Anna and Rio Posada Regional Natural Park (RNP) was established by Regional Law in 2014, initially comprising four municipalities located in the north-eastern part of the island of Sardinia (Italy). In 2017, the park obtained the UNESCO recognition as a Man and the Biosphere Reserve (MaB), including thirteen other municipalities, with a total population of about 50,000 inhabitants. It comprises different ecological niches and economic specialisations: a coastal zone, heavily urbanised and touristic, the hydrographic basin of the Posada River and an inner mountainous zone, predominantly agro-pastoral. Since the 1960s, in line with the socio-economic changes affecting the island, this zone has been affected by processes of migration towards the coastal areas in urban expansion, with a progressive depopulation of the rural hinterland. The recognition as RNP and then as MaB is part of a discourse of revitalisation of the inner areas promoted at both the Sardinian and Italian levels and follows a complex iter of normative frictions (regional and state) concerning the creation of parks and other forms of protection. In this context, one of the challenges faced by local park authorities stems from the lack of identification of the communities with the park. In this paper – actually, some initial ethnographic notes – I intend to discuss some aspects related to the processes of park making and the challenges faced by the park authorities in the management of this protected areas in which different institutional figures and actors overlap.