The Apuan Alps become a Unesco geopark

The Apuan Alps Regional Park (Tuscany) is now part of the global network of national geoparks of Unesco. The official announcement took place in Langesund in Norway, in the course of the 10th European Geoparks Conference on the issue, “Sustainability through knowledge”. Together with the Apuan Alps other territories were added to the network: two in Spain, one in France, in Iceland, in Ireland, one on the border between Poland and Germany together with two in China and one in Japan. Italy ranks first among the European countries as far as the number of Unesco geoparks are concerned. It has eight sites: the Madonie Natural Park and the Rocca di Cerere Geopark (both recognised in 2001) in Sicily, the Beigua Regional Nature Park (2005) in Liguria, the Geomineral Park in Sardinia (2007), the Adamello Brenta Natural Park (2008) in Trentino, the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park (2010) in Campania and the Park of the Metalliferous hills in the province of Grosseto (2010) in Tuscany. The Apuan Alps Park is certainly entitled to be among the 49 European territories and the 36 of the other continents that have distinguished themselves for the quality of the management of their geological heritage.