Citation: Pescatore, E.; Bentivenga, M.; Giano, S.I. Geoheritage and Geoconservation: Some Remarks and Considerations. Sustainability 2023, 15, 5823. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su15075823 Academic Editor: Asterios Bakolas Received: 27 January 2023 Revised: 13 March 2023 Accepted: 23 March 2023 Published: 27 March 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Geoheritage and Geoconservation: Some Remarks and Considerations Eva Pescatore, Mario Bentivenga and Salvatore Ivo Giano * Department of Science, University of Basilicata, Campus Macchia Romana Via Ateneo Lucano, 10, IT85100 Potenza, Italy * Correspondence: ivo.giano@unibas.it Abstract: Topics related to geoheritage research, protection, and conservation, as well as the en- hancement and dissemination of geoheritage knowledge, have experienced an important increase in interest regarding the perspectives of both research and management policies. In geoheritage and geodiversity management, geoconservation is a term that encompasses a series of actions dedi- cated to conservation, research on and the protection of geoheritage, and the enhancement as well as dissemination of knowledge in this area. Geoconservation is a kind of container, with several compartments dedicated to different aspects that identify geoheritage and geodiversity, including scientific, technical, administrative, didactical, and political aspects. These aspects are necessarily different according to (i) objects directly or indirectly involved in geoconservation actions; (ii) the area of application (protected and unprotected natural areas; emerged, submerged, or mixed areas; and urban, urbanized, and/or anthropized areas); (iii) final goals; and (iv) the final end users. This paper presents a schematization of geoconservation concepts and applications as expressed in the literature and as a result of personal experience in addressing issues related to geoheritage management. Keywords: geoconservation; geoheritage; physical landscape; territorial planning; geoheritage management 1. Introduction and Aims In recent decades, topics related to the study, protection, and conservation of geoher- itage, as well as those related to the enhancement and dissemination of knowledge of the field, have experienced an important increase in interest in both academic research and management policies dedicated to these issues. Often, when talking about the natural world, biotic aspects (plants and animals) are considered endangered, at risk of extinc- tion, and susceptible to many threats, while abiotic aspects (rocks and morphologies) are considered solid, robust, and abundant; therefore, they do not require special study or protection [1–3]. Environmental protection policies have been mainly aimed at the biotic as- pects of natural environments; academic research only began to address the abiotic aspects of natural environments in the late 1990s [2,4–8]. The common perception of geological processes’ “slowness” and of rocks’ “robustness” can lead to erroneous interpretations regarding their interactions with the natural environment and their evolution in terms of intensity as well as over space and time. This perception can lead to the misconception that geological resources are inexhaustible and immutable, while many unique and un- reproducible landscapes as well as outcrops have already been destroyed forever due to inappropriate management [1]. Another misconception is that the time required for certain natural phenomena to occur, or to reoccur, is so long as to lead one to underestimate, or even ignore, the phenomena themselves. In a society focused primarily on the “now”, which often ignores history and has little interest in what might happen in the not-so-distant future, relating the geological dimension of natural systems’ space–time evolution to the human experience is not simple. As pointed out by Dodic and Nir (2006) [9], “Human beings Sustainability 2023, 15, 5823. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075823 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability