Evoluzione dei sistemi locali e conservazione nei Parchi naturali

In the paper an explanatory framework for the analysis of the relationships between the economic process and the human landscape in the natural parks is proposed. Although they have not attracted much attention, the evolution and regulation of local systems with regards to the objective of conservation of natural and cultural capital are relevant issues both from a methodological and an applied perspective. Indeed, the complexity of regulating the evolution of local systems, under the constraints posed by the objective of conservation, calls for an extension of the 'theory of local development'. Moreover, in Italy (and in Europe) protected areas cover such a large part of the territory as to turn conservation policies into an important instruments of spatial planning. For this reason a better understanding of its methodological and theoretical premises is required. The first part of the paper focuses on the analysis of the relationships between the category of 'capital' and that of 'landscape'. It addresses the issue of the functions of these two categories in the interpretation of the aesthetic and territorial consequences of changes in the economic process that take place in natural parks. In the second part of the paper, the implications for the scope and methods of conservation policies of the 'progressive' nature of the local systems are discussed. Indeed, in the natural parks where there are 'progressive local systems' conservation policies become, as a matter of fact, policies regulating the evolution of the system and of the associated economic process - and that requires a deep revision of the way in which they have to be designed and implemented.