Conservation in the Urban-Countryside Interface: a Cautionary Note from Italy CORRADO BATTISTI ∗ AND SPARTACO GIPPOLITI† ∗ Provincia di Roma, Servizio Pianificazione Ambientale, Parchi e Riserve Naturali, Via Tiburtina, 691, 00159 Rome, Italy, email cbattisti@inwind.it †Conservation Unit, Giardino Zoologico di Pistoia, Viale Liegi 48A, 00198 Rome, Italy One of the growing fields of conservation biology is the design of protected-area systems that maximize biodiver- sity coverage (Williams 1998), but there is little awareness of the nonbiological factors that can affect the choice of protected areas (but see Margules & Pressey 2000). One such factor is the increased focus on “sustainable planning” of urban areas. Traditionally, urban ecology and development has received scarce attention from conser- vation biologists, except when threatened species have been affected by urban sprawl. By describing a case study, our aim is to emphasize the inconsistencies in linking urban ecology and protected-area designation. We sug- gest that an overemphasis on urban and exurban land reservation—encouraged by a positive social attitude to- ward environmental issues—can have negative conse- quences for conservation of biodiversity at a larger scale. The Case in Rome Italian law on protection of fauna and on hunting dictates that each of the 21 Italian regions can allocate between 20% and a maximum of 30% of land to wildlife protection. More precisely, areas where hunting is prohibited (includ- ing military zones and other fenced areas) cannot exceed 30% of the agro-sylvo-pastoral system of each region. In the Latium region, a regional law requires that such a quota be calculated at the level of the provincial district. In this region, the Rome Provincial District currently has the highest percentage of reserved areas among the five administrative subdivisions of Latium. Indeed, consider- ing all hunting-free areas, this district is the only one in Latium that exceeds the limit of 30%, with most protected areas concentrated around, and some inside, Rome. There is no evidence that this designation is motivated by biological factors, such as high species richness or endemism rates in the Roman area. On the contrary, Paper submitted April 11, 2003; revised manuscript accepted June 9, 2003. scattered evidence (mainly from biological atlas projects) highlights the presence of rare, declining, fragmentation- sensitive vertebrate species or high species richness mostly in peripheral areas of the Rome District or in other districts (e.g., birds: Boano et al. 1995; amphibians and reptiles: Bologna et al. 2000), and many species of inver- tebrates suffer local stochastic extinction due to isolation and habitat fragmentation in urban and agricultural land- scapes (Zilli 1998). Nevertheless, urban ecology studies usually overem- phasize species richness in suburban areas without any reference to the “quality” or viability of such species as- semblages. For example, Battisti et al. (2002) found that the majority of bird species surveyed in the urban area of Rome (Cignini & Zapparoli 1997) are widespread at the regional level, whereas regionally uncommon species (presumably those of greatest conservation concern) do not occur or probably had only sink populations in the ur- ban area. The low correspondence between reserves and priority conservation areas is confirmed by the fact that sites recognized as “special areas of conservation” (as per European Union Habitats Directive 92/43 and 79/409/CE) often are not found in any existing protected area of the Roman District protected-area system (Fig. 1). The protected areas surrounding Rome contribute to the 30% maximum coverage in the provincial district. Consequently, valuable natural areas of the region, and of the Rome District in particular—such as the Tolfetan area and the Prenestini, Ruffi, and Lepini mountains—cannot be legally added to the protected-area system, according to current national and regional laws. This consideration clearly shows one of the major weaknesses of the conser- vation system of the Rome District. The emphasis given to hunting prohibition by current national park legislation has resulted in a strong negative attitude by hunters toward the establishment of protected areas in some of the most valuable landscapes of the re- gion, such as the Tolfa Mountains area (Contoli & Spada 1973). This legislation is also why the establishment of protected areas where hunting is already prohibited (e.g., 581 Conservation Biology, Pages 581–583 Volume 18, No. 2, April 2004