PackRafting on Massaciuccoli’s Lake

The lake

The “Chiarone Nature Reserve” was established in 1979 with the birth of the Migliarino, San Rossore, Massaciuccoli Park. In 1985 it was entrusted to the Italian Bird Protection League – BirdLife Italia, thus was born Oasi LIPU Massaciuccoli.

The first activities of the Oasis focused on environmental education (aimed at visitors and schoolchildren), on raising the awareness of the local population and to a small extent, due to scarce economic resources, on environmental management.

Thanks to the results obtained and the commitment of the volunteers who attended the Oasis at the time, a real agreement was established with the Park Authority in 1998.

Since then, the activities carried out and the projects carried out have been many, countless. The results obtained push us to continue on this path, suffice it to say that every year over 30,000 people visit the Oasis, over 200 children and teenagers participate in summer activities, about 200 school classes come to visit the Nature Reserve. The most satisfactory results are certainly those that we obtain through environmental management and that we monitor through scientific research, such as the nesting or wintering of some rare bird species, the conservation of the peculiar habitats of the reserve and the increase in the presence of some species. very rare floristics.

In this field there is still a lot of work to be done, the critical elements are still many and affect not only our Reserve, but the whole of Lake Massaciuccoli; serious eutrophication phenomena that pollute the waters, increased salinity, massive presence of invasive alien species, illegal hunting are just some of the problems still present today.