People, Mediterranean Landscape and Environment: a complex relationship. The case of the historic garden of Balio in Erice (Trapani, Italy)

The relationship between man and environment is characterized by a high level of complexity. This fact makes it difficult to understand the deep reasons why it is necessary to explore the various possibilities of finding a balance between man and environment which is sustainable in the evolution of landscape ecosystems. Where the action research is applied to restoration cases of gardens and historic parks, the level of complexity increases even further. In the contribution, a line of connection is traced between Ecosystem Services (ES) and Nature Based Solutions (NBS) as basis of reasoning to treat the urban landscape and free spaces as integrated urban and territorial-urban policy. Reference to the theory and experiments on ES helps to frame natural and cultural ecosystem functions in a structured way. The reference to NBS helps to explore possibilities for putting into practice and experimenting with innovative ways of delivering ES in a concrete way, highlighting both the positive aspects and the negative ones. A combined methodology between ES and NBS was applied to the theme of emotive approach to the cultural heritage of historical gardens and parks in the case study of Erice, an historic center in the South of Italy characterized by depopulation and strongly seasonal tourist use. Where public action is directed towards the restoration of the urban cultural landscape, the application of the methodology to the Erice case study demonstrates that a scientific and technical instrumentation flanked by sensitivity in the reading of factors bearing profound meanings, is useful not only for the restoration of primary ecosystem functions of production and benefits to deal responsibly and consciously with the complexity of the man-relationship environment.