The Alburni Massif, the most important karst area of southern Italy: history of cave explorations and recent developments

The Alburni Massif (Campania, southern Italy) is a karst mountain extremely rich in caves and other karst landforms, situated between the valleys of the rivers Calore and Tanagro. After some initial activities at the turn between the 19th and 20th centuries, systematic speleological explorations were carried out in the early 50s by the Commissione Grotte “Eugenio Boegan”. During the following decades, the push toward further explorations reduced, until, in the late ‘80s the will to explore together gave life to AIRES, an association joining cavers from many different grottos. The main outcome of this co-operation was a book, entirely dedicated to the Alburni caves, which is still today the most important reference to study the area. In the 90’s, the activities went on, even though not within the framework of a co-operated action. Nevertheless, several important exploration results were obtained. Recently, it was again decided to make a joint effort in order to better plan and carry out research in the Alburni; thus, the Alburni Exploration Team was born, and since 2009 all the activities in the area are duly coordinated, and the news about any discovery is shared with all the interested cavers in real time, also by means of a dedicated website. The present article describes briefly the history of explorations in the Alburni Massif, following the main phases of research, and then focusing on the activities carried out in the last years. Aims of the paper are to present to an international audience the potentials of this karst area, to attract the interest of other cavers, and disseminate the information about karst and caves of Alburni to the local population, as a fundamental step toward protection and safeguarding of this precious natural environment.