Sila National Park

The Sila National Park is located in the heart of the Sila and extends for 73,695 hectares, taking on an elongated north-south shape. The park is located in Lorica, while the perimeter involves three of the five Calabrian provinces, the Province of Catanzaro, the Province of Cosenza and the Province of Crotone. The Park was established in 1997 with law n. 344, while the definitive establishment took place by Decree of the President of the Republic on November 14, 2002, after a political process started in 1923, when in Italy serious talk began of protected natural areas, establishing the first national parks. Inside the Sila National Park holds one of the most significant biodiversity systems. The symbol of the Park is the wolf, a species plundered for centuries and fortunately survived until 1970, the year in which a law was instituted in favor of its protection. The International Coordinating Council of the MAB Program (Man and the Biosphere Program), in the course of its 26th session in Jönköping, Sweden, approved the enrollment of the Sila as the 10th Italian Biosphere Reserve on the World Network of UNESCO sites of excellence. Within the Park there are 3 of the 6 reservoirs present on the silan plateau and its wooded area is very wide, so much so that among the Italian national parks is the one with the highest percentage of wooded area, about 80% of the total, consisting mainly of beech and pine forests of the typical Silano pine (Pinus nigra laricio). The valleys are wide and open along the ridges of the Park where sheep farming is practiced, with forms of transhumance and mountain pasture that still survive today, and agriculture linked above all to the cultivation of Sila potato I.G.P ..

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