Gran Paradiso National Park

Immagine dalla pubblicazione di TorinoOggi — From the publication of TorinoOggi, 2026-09-22

The Gran Paradiso National Park is Italy's oldest national protected area: it was established by royal decree law no. 1584 of 3 December 1922 and covers 71,043 hectares around the Gran Paradiso massif, which rises to 4,061 metres^[1]. The territory is divided between Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta: six of the park's thirteen municipalities – Ceresole Reale, Locana, Noasca, Ribordone, Ronco Canavese and Valprato Soana – belong to the Metropolitan City of Turin, in the Orco and Soana valleys of Canavese; the other seven lie on the Aosta Valley side, between Cogne, Valsavarenche and the Rhêmes valley^[2]. About 8,400 people live in the thirteen municipalities, but only around three hundred reside within the park's boundaries^[2].

For Turin, Gran Paradiso is the Savoy family's home mountain even before being a hiking destination: its story begins at court, with a series of acts by the kings of Sardinia to save the ibex, and ends in a public park born from a royal donation.

From a hunting ban to a royal reserve

At the start of the nineteenth century the ibex had disappeared from the rest of the Alps and survived with only a few hundred head around Gran Paradiso. On 21 September 1821 King Carlo Felice banned hunting it by royal patent; on 29 December 1836 Carlo Alberto renewed the protection, but reserved the right to hunt it to the royal family^[3]. In 1856 Vittorio Emanuele II declared the massif's mountains a Royal Hunting Reserve^[3]. According to the Park Authority, the reserve saved the species from extinction: at the end of the nineteenth century a group of fewer than a hundred specimens survived on Gran Paradiso, from which all of today's Alpine populations descend^[4].

The reserve had its own organization, later inherited by the park. In the account published by the Park Authority for its centenary it is stated that "The King formed a specialized corps of guards and had paths and mule tracks built, which still today form the backbone of the network for wildlife protection"^[5]. The last royal hunt took place in 1913^[3].

Italy's first national park

In 1919 Vittorio Emanuele III offered the State the reserve's 2,100 hectares on one condition: that a national park be created there^[5]. The decree arrived on 3 December 1922, making Gran Paradiso Italy's first national park^[3]. Its purpose was set out in the founding act:

"for the purpose of conserving the fauna and flora and preserving their special geological formations, as well as the beauty of the landscape"
Royal decree law establishing the park, 3 December 1922

The wording is quoted by Il Post in retracing the park's origins^[6].

The following years were the most difficult. Between 1933 and 1947 the ibex population collapsed dramatically: the Park Authority points to centralized management, remote from the territory, and poaching as the causes^[3]. The recovery began on 5 August 1947, when a legislative decree by the provisional Head of State Enrico De Nicola created the Gran Paradiso National Park Authority with autonomous management; its first director was Renzo Videsott^[3]. The same year saw the creation of the park rangers corps, which still today handles surveillance and the collection of wildlife data^[7].

The ibex and the park's other inhabitants

The ibex is the park's emblem and is present in all the valleys, with the largest summer concentrations in Cogne and Valsavarenche; its presence is more patchy in the Soana valley and the lower Orco valley, on the Piedmont side^[4]. An adult male weighs about 90 kilograms and carries horns averaging 92 centimetres in length; females weigh between 35 and 49 kilograms^[4]. The International Union for Conservation of Nature's profile estimates the population at about 4,000 head^[7]. Passing through a bottleneck of just a few specimens has left the species with reduced genetic diversity: according to the Park Authority it remains "extremely fragile" in the face of diseases such as mange and brucellosis, which have struck other Alpine colonies^[4].

Research on the ibex is the longest-running conducted in the park: some projects have continued for over fifty years, and the archives hold samples collected seventy years ago^[8]. The protected area has recorded 167 vertebrate species – including 51 mammals and 101 nesting bird species – and 968 plant species, a quarter of which are rare^[9]. Alongside chamois, marmots and golden eagles, recent years have seen the return of the wolf and the bearded vulture, which nested here for the first time in the Western Alps since its extinction^[5]. Since 1955, at Valnontey, a hamlet of Cogne at 1,700 metres of altitude, the Paradisia alpine botanical garden has brought together over a thousand species; the name comes not from the mountain but from the St. Bruno's lily, Paradisea liliastrum^[10].

Recognition and tourism

In 1972 the park was twinned with the French Vanoise National Park; in 2006 it received the Council of Europe's European Diploma of Protected Areas and, since 2014, has been included in the IUCN Green List, confirmed again in 2017 and 2021^[3]. The trail network measures about 850 kilometres, and there are ten visitor centres^[5].

Tourism weighs most heavily on the Aosta Valley side. On the last weekend of June 2024, the flooding of the Grand Eyvia stream destroyed Regional Road 47 at several points and cut off Cogne: more than a thousand residents and tourists were evacuated by helicopter, and the road to Valnontey, the park's gateway on the Aosta Valley side, was also blocked by landslides^[11]. Mayor Franco Allera said at the time: "We are confident we can save the season"^[11]. The reopening of the regional road was later set for 27 July 2024; for some of Cogne's accommodation businesses, summer bookings account for up to 70 percent of annual revenue^[12].

Monveso di Forzo, a "sacred mountain"

Ahead of the centenary, an unusual proposal emerged on the Piedmont side. Monveso di Forzo, a 3,322-metre peak at the head of Forzo valley, above the hamlet of the same name in Ronco Canavese, is meant to become a mountain not to be climbed, with no bans or penalties but through the voluntary commitment of mountaineers^[6]. The committee "A Sacred Mountain for Gran Paradiso," promoted by park councillor Toni Farina and former director Antonio Mingozzi, has gathered about six hundred signatures, including that of mountaineer Hervé Barmasse; the promoters use the word "sacred" to denote a high, inaccessible place "regardless of religious worship"^[6]. The park's board voted against the proposal on 13 July 2021, leaving individual councillors free to support the idea^[6].

The centenary of the House of Savoy's reserve turned park was celebrated in 2022 with a year of events, an opening ceremony in Rome attended by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, and a closing event on 3 December at Sarre Castle in Valle d'Aosta^[3].

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