The Cinque Terre are a Unesco World Heritage
Site since 1997.
The Cinque Terre National
Park was established
on 6 October 1999 in recognition of the territory's
considerable scenic, agricultural, historical
and cultural value.
Over the centuries, through constant collective
work, man has managed to create this landscape,
the only one of its kind in the world, safely
kept inside a treasure chest between Punta
Mesco and Punta Manara. A little corner of
Liguria where generations have worked to create
this monument in land scape architecture represented
by the steep terraces sloping down to the sea.
Held up by over 7000 km of dry stonewalling,
cleverly built without any kind of cement,
they are cultivated as vineyards that reach
down to almost touch the lapping sea waves.
The Cinque Terre are today a National Park and
Protected Marine with the aim of protecting this
great cultural heritage. This is the first Italian
Park created to safeguard a landscape that has
been mostly built by man. To achieve its objectives,
the Park Organization encourages the development
of responsible tourism, able therefore to invest
in the identity of the places and the territory's
products, and thus save its immense heritage
of terracing, now endangered. A sustainable tourism
is the one that participates in substainable
development policies. Sustainable development
is a model of social and economic development
that “responds to the needs of the present without
compromising the capacity of future generations
to satisfy their needs” (Brundtland Report 1987).