Editorial

A year at Santa Maria della Pietà, the former psychiatric hospital in Rome, gives a moment to recall a chapter of LIPU’s story, and to reflect on the ecology of the mind while underlining the importance of nature in our cities, as well as to give thought to the regeneration made possible by the Nature Restoration Law.

My LIPU story began thirty years ago, one morning in April 1995, in the garden of Santa Maria della Pietà, formerly Rome’s psychiatric hospital. In the shade of one of the fine trees in the garden, I waited for Paolo Capezzali, LIPU’s representative for Rome, who had assigned me to one of the delegation’s new projects, called ‘Nature Trails’. Conceived by Francesco Porseo, a psychiatrist and devoted birdwatcher as well as a renowned activist for LIPU in Rome, the project consisted in setting up a little nature-friendly area around Ward 14 of the hospital, and involving the remaining patients in it both for socialisation and natural therapy. It was my first day of Civilian Service, in lieu of the military levy in the days when it was obligatory. I was to do it there for a year, in the ex-asylum of Rome.

Contents

• The Flowering Garden of the Mind
• New Italian IBA Inventory
• Kentish Plover Protection
• Urban Raptors

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