"Pantelleria a treasure chest of biodiversity"

Pantelleria is a waterless island beaten by the winds and the inhabitants, over the centuries, have created techniques and measures to preserve the territory and guarantee survival.

Man has managed to shape nature while respecting it. Despite the absence of springs, it is a Garden Island which is a treasure chest of biodiversity. Nature and man have collaborated to paint an unexpected landscape: mastic, rosemary, myrtle, capers, vineyards, olive groves, dammusi, dry stone walls, make this territory unique.

The vegetables, fruits and aromatic plants produced on the island have a very different flavour, smell and consistency from those produced on the mainland. The volcanic nature of the area, the sun, the wind, the sea and, last but not least, the sustainable agricultural measures, make the island a unique and rare habitat.

Despite the absence of springs, Pantelleria is a Garden Island that is a treasure chest of biodiversity. Phoenicians, Saracens, Arabs, Byzantines, who lived on the island, left indelible testimonies on the island, baptized Bent el Riah or "daughter of the wind".

A wind which, together with the scarcity - closer to the absence - of water resources has urged the people of Pantelleria to implement techniques and measures to preserve the territory and guarantee survival on the island. What made it so fertile was, over the centuries, the work of the men who inhabited it with the help of its volcanic nature, the play of humid currents and the dammusi, the typical houses of the island closer to Tunisia, from which it is 65 kilometers away, than to Sicily, 110 kilometers away.

The water that makes Pantelleria fertile and green, in fact, is that collected in the cisterns connected to the rounded and smooth roofs of the dammusi, the most important legacy of the Arabs, on which the humidity of the night condenses.

Furthermore there are the dry stone walls that farmers use to support the terraces that host the crops.

- Pantelleria and biodiversity -

From the Mediterranean scrub to the forests of the Montagna Grande, from orchids to medicinal herbs, Pantelleria is a riot of colors and scents.

Pantelleria is a special ecosystem in the heart of the Mediterranean. A volcano island that preserves a unique naturalistic heritage in terms of variety and biodiversity, today protected as a national park.

Halfway between Sicily and the North African coasts, its thousand-year history has brought a kaleidoscope of colors and scents to the present day.

Along the paths of the Park you can retrace and come into contact with this thousand-year-old history.

There are 63 rare and 13 endemic species in the park. Among the latter, two species of Limonio are visible on the shore of Lake Specchio di Venere and - along the coast - between Arenella and Punta Tre Pietre, while Serapias cossyrensis, an orchid, appears from an altitude of 300 meters up to 836 of the Montagna Grande.

Pantelleria also reserves surprises for enthusiasts of medicinal herbs. In fact, three varieties of chamomile grow spontaneously along the paths and in the fields - Anthemis Nobilis, Anthemis Arvenis and Anthemis Secundiramea - and the dandelion, with the classic dandelion leaves, used in the Pantelleria tradition for its diuretic properties.

In the 6500 hectares of the park, the island preserves a variety of plant species and ecosystems that is unique in the Mediterranean.