Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre National Park ( Parco Nazionale Cinque Terre Italian ) is one of 24 national parks in Italy. It was founded in 1999 and runs north of La Spezia on the Ligurian Riviera along. It covers an area of ​​3,860 hectares, which includes the municipalities of La Spezia, Levanto, Monterosso al Mare, Riomaggiore and Vernazza with. The park is located in the cultural landscape of the Cinque Terre, which was recorded in 1997 by the UNESCO list of world natural and cultural heritage. The order to preserve the historical, cultural and natural heritage of the park in the interior and on the coast, was transferred to a park management.

The park is adjacent to the also set up in 1999 ‪ Whale Sanctuary in the Mediterranean between Liguria, southern France and Sardinia, which has a high biodiversity and habitat for many marine mammals is: Here live many Striped dolphins and fin whales, but also numerous other, rarer whale and dolphin species.

Since the 1950s, as the area is still about 8,000 people lived, the population went back to the early 90s to less than 5,000. Terracing, which fell before the creation of the park in part, increasingly wear again olive trees and vineyards. The park management promotes with pilot projects attempts to mediate between the interests of conservation, agriculture and tourism. Because organic products fetch higher prices now, such projects reach areas that were previously offset by a return to traditional agricultural methods distances - for example, because the hunt for their life belonged. In addition, can be recovered almost lost territories back for the traditional residential and farming methods. It is mainly the stonewalls of the utmost importance, their total length was calculated to be 6729 km.

The park has seven visitor centers in Corniglia, La Spezia, Lavaccio, Manarola, Monterosso al Mare, Riomaggiore and Vernazza.