Pian di Spagna

Legambiente Lecco offers, in September, an international volunteer camp for adults at the Natural Reserve of Pian di Spagna and Lake Mezzola.

This is a very important oasis located where Valchiavenna meets Valtellina, creating the basin of Lake Como. Here arises a large flat wetland, in a majestic and spectacular natural theater of crucial ornithological value, under the first spurs of the Alps Lepontine and Retiche. The Pian di Spagna is located exactly on a trajectory of migrating birds which find shelter and food there, among the thick marsh vegetation, just before and after the strenuous crossing of the Alps. In addition to birds (among which the swallow is the main host), also small and large mammals, such as foxes, badgers and deer, inhabit the reserve, which needs to be protected from the threat of some thoughtless agricultural interventions and the troublesome and dirty legacy of abandoned industrial complexes.

Legambiente Lecco works in collaboration with the institution that is in charge of the paths maintenance, the planting of native plant species, and the cleaning of the beaches located at the mouths of the Mera and Adda rivers, which is a point of great tourist attraction for lovers of sailing. Volunteers will stay in a former farmhouse, now used for scientific purposes to collect migration data by means of bird ringing.