In 2010 the Sila National Park started the complex process for the application of the MaB Reserve (Man and the Biosphere), an objective that was then achieved in 2014, when Sila became the 10th Italian Biosphere Reserve in the World Network of Excellence Sites UNESCO. To achieve this goal, local communities were involved in a very large area, corresponding to about a third of the Calabria Region, almost 5 times the current area of ​​the Sila National Park.

The MaB "Sila" Biosphere Reserve covers an area of ​​355 thousand hectares and includes 66 municipalities, including the 18 ones whose territory falls within the Sila National Park. This is an area with elements of homogeneity regarding economic and socio-demographic characteristics.

The UNESCO programme ( Man and the Biosphere Programme) has as its last purpose that of guarantee The three functionality of Mab Area:

• conservation of landscapes, habitats, ecosystems, species, diversity;

• development, with a view to full sustainability;

• the logistics of supporting research and training activities, so that the Biosphere Reserve becomes a model of good practices to be emulated, also, beyond its own geographical boundaries.

The recognition of National Park as Mab Area involves the active involvement of territory for to be able to combine the local politics with the extraordinary opportunities of socioeconomic development, generated from same recognition.

The adhesion to programme MaB "Sila" will be able to:

• to favour the real development of territory, combining the local politics with the extraordinary opportunities of social and economic growth generated from recognition;

• to determine new lines of address always more near by social needs and changes requested from dynamics of work's market, with clear, positive relapses on the resident populations and advantageous offers turned to those who, in the scope of new and different touristic flows, will choose the Mab Area as destination for his own holidays.

“The Sila Biosphere Reserve" is located in Calabria and includes the Sila National Park. The territory includes the wide upland with the same name, which has very different landscapes with glacial moraines, lakes and springs thanks his morphological and geographical characteristics, the reserve of Sila accomodates a big variety of natural environments with differet micro-climates, which ensure a very important biodiversity in all the biogeographic area of Mediterranean and rich in endemic species.

Although the hundred-year-old interactions between the men and the nature, the landscape has maintained a harmonious relation between human activities, the natural habitat and urban settlements.In the territory of the reserve live, in 71 districts, about 386 thousands inhabitants dedicated above all to agriculture, to silviculture and to rearing (the transhumance of livestock is still made, that is the seasonal migration of animals from mountains to coastal plains in winter and on the contrary. Remember that the Calabria is the fourth italian region for number of protected products (36 appellation) especially in wine sector and of cured meats (source http://www.unesco.it/it/RiserveBiosfera/Detail/92)”

Further informations are reachable on following link: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-sciences/biosphere-reserves/europe-north-america/italy/sila/