Assessment of Landscape Co-Benefits in Natura 2000 Site Management Plans

The concept of co-benefits developed in the context of climate change policies can be extended to the strategies aimed at protecting natural resources. A co-effects-based policy approach proposes a multidimensionality capable of strengthening its effectiveness and supporting a cogenerative development model aimed at promoting virtuous forms of territorial capital valorisation. The study aimed to evaluate the landscape co-benefits generated by the Natura 2000 networks, achieving a measure of efficiency of the policies and performance of the Management Plan, with reference to the “Timpa di Acireale” site. CVM and TCM were used for the estimation of landscape co-benefits. For the evaluation of the efficiency of the policies and the performance of the Plan, some economic-financial criteria were implemented. With reference to the user-citizen, the local tourist and the supralocal tourist, flows of annual co-benefits of EUR 754,764, EUR 99,678.12 and EUR 2276.39, respectively, were estimated. The analyses of the efficiency of the policies and the performance of the Plan provided sufficient results. In conclusion, the lack of an adequate level of infrastructure for all users’ profiles reduces the ability to generate co-benefits for the users themselves and more significantly for tourists in a territory with a strong tourism vocation.