Regional Observatory of Biodiversity
Autonomous Region of Aosta Valley

The Aosta Valley has a natural heritage of great value; about 30% of its territory is covered by natural protected sites, by sites belonging to the Nature 2000 European ecological network and by four alpine botanical gardens.

The VDA Nature Métro project, as part of the 2007/2013 Regional Competitiveness FESR Operational Program, was created to systematically respond to the necessity of creating a strong unified picture of all the protected natural areas of the Aosta Valley, by increasing their visibility and overcoming the current fragmentation of the context, in order to transmit a concept of protection and accessible and conscious natural fruition.
At national level, the National Biodiversity Strategy was presented in May 2010, whose main objective is to preserve the biodiversity by ensuring the use of its components in a sustainable and durable manner, through a multidisciplinary approach, as well as sharing and collaboration between the various stakeholders, including political figures, local governments and representatives of the academic and scientific world.

By using databases concerning the nature, the Observatory contributes significantly to the European Action Plan for the conservation of biodiversity, through monitoring actions of habitats and species, in order to improve the scientific knowledge.
In particular, the activities performed by the Aosta Valley Museum of Natural Science refer the scientific support on the construction of the VIVA (Aosta Valley unique by nature) system, the creation of a database based on naturalistic and human pressure topics, the activity of updating, evaluating and defining of the modalities for implementation of the state of scientific knowledge for each natural site, the development of survey methods and data monitoring and protocols for processing them, the identification of flora, fauna and habitats bio-indicators as well as social-economic indicators for performance monitoring of the sites and especially for the Nature 2000 network, the identification of regional ecological network.
In order to face these commitments, in support of the project VDA Nature Métro, the creation of the Regional Observatory of Biodiversity has been conceived, on which the Aosta Valley Regional Museum of Natural Sciences is the actuator subject, as an expression of the high naturalistic value of the region.
The Observatory is intended as a database system oriented to support the management of these high valued naturalistic areas, but it is also available to users who desire to obtain information on this natural heritage.
The Observatory is an essential part of the project “VDA Nature Métro” because the information and the istructions that will be provided should be focused to the preservation and responsible exploitment of the sites.
The user has the possibility to obtain information on natural features and can also contribute to the implementation of the contents of databases nature with their signalisations.