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Wilderness is an important concept in the discourses and policies concerning contemporary European protected areas, inherently challenging in terms of sustainability. Since its designation in 1992, the Val Grande National Park, located in northwest Italy, has been portrayed and promoted as a wilderness area, thereby enhancing tourism, whilst disregarding the historical signs of human activity. In this paper we explore the wilderness concept, focusing on the narratives developed in the area, that changed from a strict conservationist approach to a more utilitarian one, influencing the National Park's policy-making. The research is based mainly on the content analysis of several literary texts. We conclude that wildernessneeds to be reconceptualized so that contemporary European protection policies might become more effective, and we may use our knowledge of nature to promote sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to the workplace is one of the most important rights of citizenship. In some areas, the unavailability of job opportunities pushes people to commute. Nevertheless, there are areas where even commuting does not allow the improvement of individuals' economic and social conditions. This locks residents into a local job market that can be, in many cases, limited, low-income, or just unsatisfying. In this paper, we focus on the latest conditions in the Lombardia region (Italy). In order to identify marginal areas where low transport accessibility and high commuting cost may represent a barrier to territorial disparities in job access, we compare different classifications of marginality: socioeconomic indicators, an institutional one (SNAI), and, finally, one based on an indicator of marginal commuting gain (MCG). Evidence from this work will show an almost perfect match between very-fragile territories in socioeconomic terms and areas characterized by a low MCG indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sicily's uneven geological structure is positioned within a system of tectonic plates, and its very active volcano has always made it prone to disasters. Many Sicilian cities have in fact been destroyed by natural events many times over the centuries. This can certainly be understood negatively as the destruction of entire towns, the emission of volcanic ash, and the mutation of landscapes by a terrifying force have instilled fearful memories in local populations. But from another point of view one must consider the positive elements of Etna. Its beautiful landscapes were a major attraction on the Grand Tour, and its inhabitants have long associated the volcano with the concept of rebirth and fertility. This paper analyzes two age groups of residents in the town of Nicolosi and is a small part of an ongoing research project that is much more complex, involving representative samples of the entire population of several towns around Etna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of flood hazard has been a key theme within the spatial analysis of natural hazards. A number of authors have expanded on this tradition by adopting a society-oriented approach to risk perception. Thus a new framework has become available for exploring social response to risk and describing the relationship between human communities and hazards in terms of contemporary interpretative categories such as social representation and 'stigmatization,' the latter defined as the process by which media and social actors mark places affected by disastrous events as dangerous and unsafe sites. This literature has made a vital contribution to the geographical reading of flood hazard, showing how flood risk generates both space- and place-making processes. In this paper I discuss the relationship between these two processes, suggesting that the political response to flood hazard may be viewed as a hetero-directed strategy that influences place-making at a local level. I illustrate this perspective using a field research conducted in 2006-2007 on the Po River Basin in Piemonte, an Italian region with high flood risk that has been affected by a series of events in recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]