Rural poverty and rural development: a case for family Farming and sustainable tourism in the National Park of Gargano (Italy)

Nowadays agricultural markets are going through a process of radical transformation and chances arise to make significant progress in the fight against rural poverty. Although during the past ten years more than 350 million people in rural areas have reached a standard of living out of the state of absolute poverty, global poverty itself remains a phenomenon predominantly rural. In order to put in place effective strategies, it is fundamental to create an environment that allows people living in rural areas to overcome all the challenges they face in their efforts to successfully manage their economic activities. This is particularly true with reference to Family farming in protected areas; in the National Park of Gargano, in Puglia region (Italy), the Park authority recognizes the important role of farmers in managing the territory of the Park itself, and in fostering rural development; an in-depth analysis of the Park agro-ecosystems constitutes the starting point to develop effective governance tools to preserve the agro-pastoral traditions of local communities and to enable the National Park of Gargano and the farmers operating in it to interact in order to develop a “management model” capable of assessing the agro-environmental sustainability of farms and promote their multifunctionality, with particular regard to sustainable tourism, leading the National Park of Gargano to become member of the Europarc Federation.