A productive three days of meetings and visits took place over the past few days in the town of Kalabaka in Thessaly.

Rewilding Apennines joins the numerous associations that have organized a demonstration in memory of the Amarena the bear, to ask the authorities and law enforcement agencies for greater control of the territory and commitment to the protection of fauna and for citizens to actively participate in putting into practice a real coexistence. The initiative will be held on Sunday 10 September at 10:00 in Piazza Mazzarino in Pescina (AQ).

The aim of the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors initiative is to enhance human-bear coexistence in Italy, Greece, and further afield. The initiative’s well-attended first two public meetings, in the towns of Pettorano sul Gizio and Vastogirardi in the Central Apennines rewilding landscape, proved very positive and educational events.

A high participation of people characterized the first public event of the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors in the Bear Smart Community Genzana, the first to be established in Italy 8 years ago.

The initiatives of the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors project are as necessary as they are desirable in the areas of new expansion of the Marsican brown bear, such as Alto Molise. And here it is essential to meet the communities.

Recently, a local news website relating to the Gran Sasso area published a letter from one of its readers without first verifying the veracity of the content and, then, selecting the correct information. Since this letter concerns the presence of specimens of the Marsican brown bear in the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, many have questioned whether it could undermine the delicate process of peaceful coexistence between the local communities and the bear in the newly expanding territories of the species, which is also carrying out through the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors initiative.

The LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors project gets underway to meet the communities and ask: “Is it possible to live in an area where bears also live? And how?”

Coexistence between large predators and humans is essential to conservation. An innovative map, created thanks to the collaboration between scientists and local communities, highlights the critical areas and contributes to the planning of coexistence and conservation measures designed to meet the needs of the territory.

A new study has confirmed that Marsican brown bears play a valuable role promoting the Central Apennines as nature-based tourism destination.

Within the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors initiative, some partners had the idea to spread the coexistence best practices with the bear through the promotion of high-quality food products from the Central Apennines, all encased within the Bear-Smart Box.