Daniel Franco

The bushmeat trade in West and Central Africa embraces a broad range of ecological, economic, and conservation issues. To date, most studies have focused on the economic and conservation aspects of the bushmeat trade, with less emphasis on the ecological implications of wildlife extraction. Here, we analysed available literature on the bushmeat tra...

A Contingent Valuation (CV) was used to estimate the common goods’ overall value of three landscapes (woodlands, wetlands, rural landscape) of the Province of Rome, to use them for policy and administration purpose. Both single and multi-bounded discrete choice models was used. The results are similar between models with a repeated maximum likeliho...

This paper investigates the shared knowledge held by a rural population of the ecosystem services supplied by rural landscapes and woods in the Rome Province of Italy. It is part of a wider research initiative conducted to estimate the non-use values of the same ecosystem services elicited through the contingent valuation method. Our findings demon...

Ectothermic vertebrates depend on ambient temperatures for their activities. Thus, global warming is expected to influence several aspects of their ecology. Here, we use a >20 year (1990–2011) dataset on monthly numbers of roadkills in an area of central Italy in order to document whether the phenology of a Mediterranean population of Western whip...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a methodological approach to analyse the strategic outliers and the multiple motivations in a contingent valuation used for a real policy case study. Design/methodology/approach – The used approach rationalises the cross comparison of the overall different information levels obtained by the survey...

At first sight, the increasing trend of many large mammal populations in EU Member States are the results from successful application of EU environmental legislation. In this perspective a ‘rewilding’ Europe appears as a laudable conservation goal. It has been therefore suggested that the EU model of carnivores-humans coexistence could be of intere...

Comitato Capitale Naturale (2017), Primo Rapporto sullo Stato del Capitale Naturale in Italia, Roma.

Based on long-term fieldwork, we report a descriptive SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis performed by a public agency that manages a protected area (PA) system in a densely populated area (Rome, central Italy) to highlight the core limits in this PA's management effectiveness. The key result of the analysis is that th...

In a context of climate change, ecological and physiological adaptations of organisms are of central importance for determining the outcome of niche challenges (e.g., with potential competitors) and species persistence. Typically, long-term data on free-ranging populations are needed to investigate such phenomena. Here, long-term data on a free-ran...

Based on long-term fieldwork, we report a descriptive SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis performed by a public agency that manages a protected area (PA) system in a densely populated area (Rome, central Italy) to highlight the core limits in this PA's management effectiveness. The key result of the analysis is that th...

Researchers and practitioners in basic and applied ecology provide to private or public clients assessment documents on various concern topics, such as the state of ecosystem components, the type of threats and their regime or the level of pressure and impact on biodiversity. These assessments, carried out by ecological field studies, may be strate...

The estimation of wetlands’ non-use values to build up a total economic evaluation can be based on stated preference methods, which derives from the standard economic model that assumes a rational assessment of the consequence of preferences on personal utility. The paper describes the nature of the citizens’ shared ecological knowledge of wetlands...

In 2011 and 2012 we carried out a monitoring study to evaluate the indirect impacts of a wind farm on the breeding bird assemblages in a high-altitude secondary prairie area of the central Apennines (Italy). We used the point count method to compare the breeding birds at species and assemblage level, using the wind farm area (36 windmills) as treat...

Based on long-term fieldwork, we report a descriptive SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis performed by a public agency that manages a protected area (PA) system in a densely populated area (Rome, central Italy) to highlight the core limits in this PA’s management effectiveness. The key result of the analysis is that th...

Le società occidentali hanno perso di vista negli ultimi secoli aspetti centrali della qualità della vita degli individui nella collettività, come la preservazione dei servizi ecosistemici, per il prevalere di filosofie mercantili individuali. Per rispondere ai crescenti problemi che ciò ha determinato ci stiamo reinventando i Payment for Ecosystem...

Background Venomous snakes are among the most serious health hazards for rural people in tropical regions of the world. Herein we compare the monthly activity patterns of eight venomous snake species (Elapidae and Viperidae) with those of rural people in the Niger Delta area of southern Nigeria, in order to identify the periods of highest potentia...

In 2011 and 2012 we carried out a monitoring study to evaluate the indirect impacts of a wind farm on the breeding bird assemblages in a high-altitude secondary prairie area of the central Apennines (Italy). We used the point count method to compare the breeding birds at species and assemblage level, using the wind farm area (36 windmills) as treat...

Based on long-term fieldwork, we report a descriptive SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis performed by a public agency that manages a protected area (PA) system in a densely populated area (Rome, central Italy) to highlight the core limits in this PA's management effectiveness. The key result of the analysis is that th...

Recent studies suggest that snakes are widely declining in at least three continents, and that this decline has targeted some species of tropical Nigeria, West Africa. To describe the possible interrelations among different causes and the boundary conditions to forecast snake decline, we explored local communities' Ecological Knowledge (EK) in this...

I. PREMESSA Assumendo il modello democratico come riferimento di società contemporanea, l'impressione è che oggi un'idea prevalente di economia vi abbia assunto un ruolo distorto, sia quanto branca del sapere tra le altre, sia in relazione al ruolo di indirizzo del pensiero comune riguardo all'accettabilità delle scelte condivise. Tale distorsione...

A cost-effectiveness analysis was performed to evaluate the competitiveness of seminatural Free Water Surface (FWS) wetlands compared to traditional wastewater-treatment plants. Six scenarios of the service costs of three FWS wetlands and three different wastewater-treatment plants based on active sludge processes were compared. The six scenarios w...

An essay on the role of knowledge in the decison proccesses managing landscapes' "qualities".

Wetlands are effective in the treatment of polluted surface water. A semi-natural wetland pilot plant was established to verify the pollutant abatement effectiveness of the Venice Lagoon inlet water. The unique conditions of this brackish environmental site are: (1) a high concentration of carbonate and low concentrations of sulphides, and (2) the...

An experimental water treatment plant was established to verify the effectiveness of constructed wetlands to improve water quality in the Venice Lagoon watershed. The wetland comprised three different subsystems, ranging from a riparian swamp to a marsh ecosystem. As a first step, monitoring was conducted over three years to evaluate the efficacy a...

La diversità è una proprietà che attiene sia alle singole popolazioni e specie, che alle categorie di classificazione superiori (comunità, ecosistemi, paesaggi), con un evidente legame gerarchico tra queste. La fascinazione dell'essere circondati da innumerevoli animali e piante, o da paesaggi e luoghi mutevoli è un elemento positivo e che suscita...

Purpose – Landscape ecology represents an area of theoretical and empirical support of spatial planning, providing parameters such as heterogeneity, connectivity and fragmentation. The aim of this study was to use these parameters to evaluate the choices of a real planning tool to protect the biodiversity, to evaluate the applicability limits of co...

The reintroduction of agroforestry networks (via a GIS-supported design procedure) is one of a number of strategies that some authorities of the lagoon of Venice drainage basin (in Italy) are planning to use in order to control lagoon pollution and to achieve landscape amelioration. While attention is paid to the conservation implications and envir...

The reintroduction of agroforestry networks (via a GIS-supported design procedure) is one of a number of strategies that some authorities of the lagoon of Venice drainage basin (in Italy) are planning to use in order to control lagoon pollution and to achieve landscape amelioration. While attention is paid to the conservation implications and envir...

In the last decade we realised several rural landscape amelioration plans (Italy) by means of diffuse reintroduction of agroforestry linear plantations. To this end a GIS decision support system was developed that has been progressively implemented after design problem solutions and field/simulation research. Given that hedgerow (re)introduction co...

Agroforestry networks can be a means to achieve landscape amelioration. Some authorities of the Lagoon of Venice drainage basin (Italy) are planning, amongst other actions to control pollution in the Lagoon, to reintroduce agroforestry by means of a GIS-supported design procedure. The goals of this paper were to assess (i) the contingent valuation...

The Italian Section of the IWA Specialist Group on The Use of Macrophytes for Water Pollution Control was established at the end of 1999. The Group is collecting data (process, design criteria, plant utilization, removal efficiency, economic and legislative aspects, etc.) on the existing plants operating in Italy in order to contribute to the devel...

During 1999–2001, we set artificial nest boxes of suitable size in three deciduous woodlands (1200–1600 m a.s.l.): a pure Fagus sylvatica wood, a mixed Q. petraea and Ilex aquifolium and a mixed F. sylvatica and Quercus petraea in the Madonie Regional Park (Sic- ily) to obtain basic data on the species’ ecology. Nest box density was 25 per ha. TheF...

The Contingent Valuation Method was used to elicit willingness to pay an annual tax to preserve the Region of Veneto (Italy) wetlands. The Total Economic Value of the regional wetlands was evaluated by means of a survey. The respondents were representative of the regional population in terms of spatial proximity to wetlands, socio-cultural membersh...