Strelitzia nicolaii Regel & Körn. (Strelitziaceae), a casual alien plant new to Northern Hemisphere

The ongoing naturalization of the blue giant paradise bird tree, Strelitzia nicolaii, is here reported for the first time for NW Sicily (Italy). Native to SE Africa, this ornamental plant was locally introduced around mid XIX century. During last two decades the first cases of pollination and dispersal have been recorded, and within last 10 years several individuals were able to establish in abandoned Citrus orchards or in private gardens subject to moderate soil management

Land-estimation questions in improvement of the Trazzera’s regional property in Sicily

The “demanio trazzerale” (herd way regional property) in Sicily constitutes a significant quota of the territorial social capital, due to its historical and cultural origin.A recent law draft considers its new and diverse potentiality to be assumed in the re-planning of the territory at inter-municipal scale, but some criticalities concern the calculation of the legitimization corresponding sale price.The contribution provides appraisal tools for: the legitimizations in urban areas, with a valuation model of the fair market value; b) the valuation of the territorial value of a “trazzera”, in order to select the ones more suitable to be included within a recovery land plan for a new and different territorial policy, which the administration will have to undertake if the law draft is validated.The “demanio trazzerale” (herd way regional property) in Sicily constitutes a significant quota of the territorial social capital, due to its historical and cultural origin.A recent law draft considers its new and diverse potentiality to be assumed in the re-planning of the territory at inter-municipal scale, but some criticalities concern the calculation of the legitimization corresponding sale price.The contribution provides appraisal tools for: the legitimizations in urban areas, with a valuation model of the fair market value; b) the valuation of the territorial value of a “trazzera”, in order to select the ones more suitable to be included within a recovery land plan for a new and different territorial policy, which the administration will have to undertake if the law draft is validated

People, Property and Territory: Valuation Perspectives and Economic Prospects for the Trazzera Regional Property Reuse in Sicily

As in many parts of Italy and Europe, the Sicilian Trazzera regional property has been for a long time the main land infrastructure supporting the agro-pastoral economy. Throughout its slow evolution, this land heritage has been affected by transport transformations and illegal appropriations by neighboring landowners, which have reduced its potential public function in the current renewed prospects of sustainability and a new balance between territories concerning the issue of the inland areas. A further issue concerns the management of the relationship between private interest and prospects for public reuse in progressively urbanized territorial contexts where this infrastructure takes on considerable economic and real estate interest. The current regional legislation suggests some measures for inter-municipal planning that also include the legitimization of illegal appropriations. From this twofold prospect, according to the wide-spread information and communication technologies (ICTs), and also including the geographic information systems (GIS), this work provides the application of two assessment tools based on a GeoDatabase of the current heard roads in the two areas of quantitative–monetary and aesthetic–qualitative assessment. The first shows the extent to which the fair compensation to be charged for legitimizing land parcels is underestimated today, to the detriment of urban social fixed capital development. The second demonstrates the way that common awareness of landscape value can be nurtured for the benefit of land and ecological–environmental rebalancing