ALENTO RIVER's NATURE RESERVE
The whole stream of the Alento river, located in the Province of Salerno, near to the Cilento e Vallo di Diano National Park, represent a wide Site of Community Interest (SIC).
SICs have been introduced by the directive “Habitat” from the European Union in 1992, aiming to help safeguarding the biodiversity through the creation of a network of areas designed to keep the biological diversity of the European areas and to protect a series of habitat, with peculiar characteristics, and animal and vegetal species of a certain interest. This network is called “Nature 2000”.
The Alento river crosses a wide area characterized by the presence of mountains and maquis, broken up by cultivations such as olive groves, vineyards, orchards and also by ancient Greek cities such as Velia-Elea or the Alento’s barrage. The flow of the river is surrounded by forests and it covers 3.024 hectars.
This area is very rich of biodiversities. There are several habitats: a lake and three different kind of forests such as the maquis, the board-leaved wood and the gallery forests along the river. There also are areas of shrubs covering abandoned agricultural lands, prairies or steppes and damp areas covered with grove of reeds.
Downstream of the Alento’s barrage there is a system made of seven small lakes connected with paths for all the visitors who wants to watch the birds and the aquatic fauna. The river flows until the sea near to Velia in a natural mouth of incredible landscaping impact.
The maquis in this area is made of different species such as holm oaks, olives, pistacia lentiscus, phillyrea latifolia, myrtus communis, tree heath, strawberry trees and buckthorns.
The broad-leaved wood is localized at higher altitude compared to the maquis, especially between the town of Gorga and Monteforte. It is mainly made of deciduous broad-leaved trees. The most representative arboreal species are the downy oak, the turkey oak, the field maple, the manna ash and the Neapolitan alder. Along the river’s banks the vegetation is made of purple willow (Salix purpurea) and the salix eleagnos.
The gallery forests along the river are mainly made of white willows (Salix alba), black poplars (Populus nigra),white poplars (Populus alba) and black alder (Alnus glutinosa).
The lower part of the river course is characterized by the presence of broad cultivated areas (usually orchards). The natural vegetation is composed of different arboreal species such as the white willows, the black poplar, the black alder, the black locust and also shrubby species like the elder (sambucus nigra).
Among the mammals the European otter is present in the reserve, even if it has almost disappeared in Italy. According to some estimations there are about one hundred individuals left, 70% of them can be found in the water courses of the Campania, Basilicata and Puglia regions. For this reason this species is protected from the European directive “Habitat”, just like numerous species of bats such as the lesser horseshoe bat and the greater horseshoe bat. There are also the greater mouse-eared bat and the common bent-wing bat.
Since this area is very reach in damp areas, amphibious are numerous. Among them it can be seen the Yellow-Bellied Toad (Bombina variegata), but also the Italian Newt, an endemic species quite rare in the middle-southern Apennines. It also possible to find the spectacled salamander (Salamandrina terdigitata) and the Italian stream frog. Apart from the protected species it is also possible to find other species of amphibious such as Italian tree frog (Hyla italic), the green frog and the fire salamander.
The nature reserve hosts several species of reptiles even if none is endemic. It is possible to see the Italian wall lizard, the European green lizard and the green whip snake, which are three of the most widespread species of reptiles in Italy. It is easy to come across the four-lined snake and the European pond turtle.
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