Cinque Terre: terraced landscape preservation and tourism sustainability

Cinque Terre terraced landscape represents an extraordinary example of the peculiar relation between humankind and nature. For centuries its inhabitants shaped the territory, building a farmed terraced system that has characterized the image and identity of this land until today. This territory, extremely vulnerable to natural disaster and anthropic degradation, has been involved in several actions aimed at its protection and safeguard since the 1980s, through regional laws supporting local agriculture and terraces preservation. The site was inscribed in the World Heritage List as a cultural landscape in 1997 and Cinque Terre National Park was established in 1999. Through the analysis of the existing regulations context, related requirements, touristic data, promotion and strategies, this paper aims to explore the relationship between mass tourism effects and landscape vulnerability, focusing on the conflict existing between sustainability declared, or sought, by the authorities and the risks related to land consumption.