Management and scientific research in show caves: some considerations, based upon experience in Southern Italy

Show caves are all over the world the main way to introduce high number of people to the karst world. Since opening the very first show caves, cavers, managers and scientists had to face the problems in finding a compromise between touristic development and local economy and environment conservation. It is now accepted that each show cave is, for some reasons, not natural anymore, being changed the main physical parameters that characterized it before opening to the public. Nevertheless, co-existence of a proper management with cave science and research is possible. This goal should be reached through joint efforts from both the parts (managers vs. scientists), and could potentially result in sites more interesting to visit, based upon scientifically sound but easy-to-comprehend explanations by trained cave guides. Based upon Italian experience, and with a particular regard to southern Italian show caves, this contribution will try to highlight the main difficulties in managing show caves and developing scientific research actions, aimed at both preserving the natural environment as much as possible, and obtaining useful information and data to tell nice stories about karst and caves to the general public, with a peculiar focus on young generations.