Therapeutic Parks in Natural Protected Areas in Umbria Region/Italy

Several Italian initiatives are aimed at recasting the central, strategic role of parks and natural protected areas. However, there is a lack of concrete proposals to assign new roles for these areas, which should be adapted to the new sensitivities of a changing society without losing sight of their calling. This article deals with the Umbria Region’s Therapeutic Parks initiative, which combines improvement of Umbria’s most important natural parks with forest-therapy and ecotherapy. This experimental project has positive outcomes in terms of mental and physical health, but also for very good social,ethic and economic prospects. The challenge is to strongly relaunch the key role of natural parks and protected areas,supporting both the achievement of their primary goals’ and their further contribution to the cultural, social and economic development of the contemporary world .