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This paper aims to the valuation of the benefits that a local community living in a protected area may perceive with regard to the presence of monumental trees. Financial resources to be destined for protection interventions have been decreasing more and more, with a high risk of losing this natural heritage. A CVM survey was carried out among theMadoniePark(Sicily,Italy) resident households, to evaluate the existence value of monumental trees of the Nature Trail named "Piano Sempria-Piano Pomo", represented by a population of "Giant hollies" and by 7 other individual trees. These are the main results of the CVM survey: the overall response rate was 40%, individual average WTPs were €12.37 for the protection of the holly population and €13.45 for all the monumental trees along the Nature Trail. The median WTPs were respectively €2.00 and €5.00. The aggregate WTP estimates for the Park residents range from a minimum of €10,520.40 to a maximum amount of €83,479.37 depending upon the investigated resource and the statistics considered.

Spatial analysis is making an increasingly important contribution to surveillance measures due to its ability to enable immediate visualization of information on the phenomenon studied. The authors describe the spatial distribution of prevalence and incidence of brucellosis in small ruminants in Sicily between 2001 and 2005. The study was conducted by integrating geographic information systems (GIS) technology (MapInfo Professional 7.0) with SaTScan software to perform an epidemiological analysis of the municipalities and to locate problem areas. A comparison between the thematic maps produced for brucellosis in small ruminants on the basis of prevalence and incidence data for each individual year has shown that in terms of prevalence, the area identified as the secondary cluster in 2001 became the primary cluster from 2002 onwards whereas, in terms of incidence, the distribution of the clusters was irregular throughout the entire region during the years studied.