Popular Initiative Recovery Plan to Safeguard a Portion of the Niscemi Forest in the Favorita Park, Identifiable with Parcel No. 29, 19 and 30 of Map Sheet No. 23 of the Palermo Land Registry.
Premise:
"Introduce the population towards the beauty of this naturalistic space of over 400 hectares, restore the water system still present, which is part of the original irrigation system of the vast garden, keep the undergrowth clean, respecting its natural and fundamental balance for protect this treasure from fires". Return this treasure to the citizens and to the world. The paths, the paths, the tree species, their ornamental characteristics are significant examples of the "neoclassical" taste that characterizes the nineteenth-century project of the Bourbon estate. They must be restored and returned to citizens as soon as possible.
The park is a Regional State property given in concession to the Municipality of Palermo which uses it and should look after and protect it. Where public intervention is lacking in the care and protection of the common good, citizens intervene to protect and care for it.
The forest is a green rectangle, thick with vegetation, set in the heart of the Favorita Park. Walking inside is a unique and unforgettable experience. You are kidnapped by the genius of the place, you are subjugated by its beauty. You are amazed by the wickedness of those who abandoned it to neglect.
The Bosco Niscemi is a small oasis that houses a notable variety of fauna and tree species, with a large colony of barn owls. It is part of the Monte Pellegrino Oriented Nature Reserve, we find ourselves in the presence of a portion of the protected area with important naturalistic value.
It is called Bosco Niscemi because it takes its name from the Niscemi "bottom", where the ancient residence of the Valguarnera family is located, today the representative seat of the Municipality of Palermo. The forest is located, bordered by the Favorita citrus groves, at the height of the Teatro di Verdura, but on the other side of Viale del Fante. It is a precious remaining portion of the park created in 1799 by Ferdinand IV of Bourbon. La Favorita, a 400 hectare green area, where the sovereign loved to hunt among the holm oak and mastic woods. The Bosco Niscemi is precisely the last piece of an holm oak forest which has not undergone human intervention for over two centuries: in that small square nature evolves with its rules which allow the existing flora to remain intact, without suffering from the contamination of external species. The only complaint is the unchallenged aggression, carelessness and disinterest of the administrators, which manifests itself through the accumulation of rubbish of all kinds without any respect for the place. All this well protected by the high surrounding walls, which hide everything from view.
The historic forest of artificial origin dates back to the establishment of the Bourbon park. The tree species that we find there are the holm oak, the mastic tree, an evergreen shrub typical of the Mediterranean scrub, the viburnum, a plant with prolonged flowering, the phillyrea, a shrub of the olive family, the strawberry tree with its red fruits and, as undergrowth, in addition to mushrooms and moss, herbaceous plants such as butcher's broom, blackberry, acanthus, arum, smilax and a particular species of clematis. The forest, no larger than five hectares, has particular characteristics. In the past, it was exploited as a coppice forest, that is, used for wood.
Bosco Niscemi a Palermo. Sottobosco e sentieri originari.
