In May 2013, at the end of a long common journey, the parks of Monviso and Queyras (France) were awarded the UNESCO recognition of Biosphere Reserve for each of the two vast areas of reference around the “King of Stone”.
In June 2014, UNESCO then approved the first cross-border Italian reserve which united the two reserves in a single cross-border reserve, extending well beyond the territory of the two natural parks, but which finds its core zone within them.
With a surface area of around 400,000 hectares, it involves more than 300,000 inhabitants over 87 Italian municipalities and 21 French communes and comprises environments ranging from mountain tops (the valleys around Monviso in the heart of the Cozie Alps, the Hautes-Alpes and the Alps of the Haute Provence in the PACA region), to the plain lands of Turin and Cuneo all the way to skim the first hills of the Langhe and including World Heritage sites (for Piedmont the two Savoy residences of Pollenzo and Racconigi).
The presence of the Monviso Mountain, the Po River, a multitude of Alpine lakes, many landscapes characterised by the balanced relationship between man and the environment and a rich ecology and biology make this territory one of Nature’s jewels in the heart of the Alps.
