Stories, territories and communities of monumental trees in Southern Italy.

The work Arborum Meridies is part of an action-research programme of the Environment, Territory and Sustainability Laboratory in the South of the Magna Grecia Foundation, as part of the interventions aimed at building a knowledge base on the environmental and landscape heritage and on the relationship that local populations weave with the latter, both in terms of wealth of knowledge possessed and respect to the widespread potential for greater social protection and enhancement of cultural, economic, natural and landscape heritage. The series offers a photographic survey of the heritage of monumental trees in the South, recounting and showing the specimens officially recognized and catalogued, but also those perceived as a naturalistic asset linked to populations’ sense of identity and not registered in the ministerial lists. The unpublished photographic material has been produced by young independent nature photographers and represents a unique visual database to access the beauty of our arboreal heritage.