Pantanello Park

The idea of re-naturalizing the farm land of the Caetani Foundation adjacent to the Garden of Ninfa, was born by chance in 1991 during a walk.

The Roffredo Caetani Foundation has carried out a re-naturalization work on an area of about one hundred hectares previously destined to agricultural crops, recreating the humid environments that characterized the Pontine Plain.

On an early summer day in 1991, Fulco Pratesi, Honorary President of WWF Italy, Arturo Osio, then President of the Caetani Foundation, and Lauro Marchetti, Director of the Garden of Ninfa, took a walk outside the walls of Ninfa. In front of their eyes an anonymous field of alfalfa, with few trees, and distant birdsong.

Fulco Pratesi asked: “What was here before?”, “Swamps for much of the year and lots of greenery, we have photos and prints of the era” answered Lauro Marchetti. The eyes of Fulco Pratesi and Arturo Osio opened wide, Fulco Pratesi said enthusiastically: “We want to be a little crazy? We recreate the swamp! “.

The idea was to give back to the wild nature an area strongly transformed by man to create a continuum with the Garden of Ninfa, so that, once the swamp was reborn, the dead city of Ninfa, would return to appear, as it was in the past on an expanse of marshes and woods.

A team of geologists, botanists, zoologists, entomologists and historians had conducted a careful study to recreate the original environment of the Pontine Marshes.

The Pantanello Park is characterized by six marsh ponds, different for depth and extension, fed by the waters of the river Ninf: three ponds of plant life, the pond of amphibians with still waters without fish, the pond of birds with deep water for aquatic birdlife and seasonal marshy meadows, habitats of numerous species of insects, and the pond on whose waters reflect the walls of Ninfa.

In the park has been reintroduced the local flora of the area thanks to the precious study conducted by the botanist Augusto Beguinot (1875-1940) who described in detail the vegetation of the Pontine Marshes before the last reclamation of the 20th century.

The Pantanello Park was opened the 15th December 2009.

It is open to the public during the winter season, from October to March, so as not to disturb the reproduction of the birds; Pantanello is in fact on one of the main routes of migratory birds and is a suitable place for a rest stop, for wintering and also for the nesting of some species.

There have been recorded arrivals of wild ducks such as Teals, Spoonbills, Moriglioni, Canapiglie, and then Aironi, Garzette, Martin fishermen, Pavoncelle, and some rare species, such as the Moretta Tabaccata, and some species of birds of prey, such as the marsh harrier and the Peregrine falcon.

The Pantanello Park is also intended to perform a scientific-educational function through study programs and environmental monitoring and study of the ecology of wetlands to be carried out in collaboration with schools and research institutes, national and international.