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Sustainable development is the driving force for social, ecological, economic, and durable development, as prescribed by the UN Agenda 2030 to spur economic growth and tackle climate change. Similarly, sustainable tourism requires an integrated approach in the surrounding area; local policies have a crucial role in planning and managing the tourist destination in several aspects. The lack of those policies may leave the management of touristification to private businesses, causing progressive deterioration of the assets such as environmental impact; for instance, it could overload the carrying capacity. Italy has the highest number of UNESCO acknowledgments in the world. Thanks to the brand UNESCO contains, the prominent acknowledgment can attract more tourists than heritage would do without the acknowledgment. On the other hand, to guarantee the durability of the heritage without compromising the sites, UNESCO requires adopting a management plan for the sustainable development of the local area. Policymakers, citizens, and private businesses should consider the management plan for a stable economy and society structured in a healthy environment. Still, the implementation of those politics and tourism management is limited. This work aims to explore the pathway for sustainable development in Sicily (Italy) by analyzing the weakness and strengths of local policy adopted in the theoretical framework of sustainability and will explore the state of the art of sustainable tourism implemented to identify further steps toward Sicily’s transformation. The considerable offer of the cultural attractions and natural beauty of Sicily embodies a vital development potential that would offer an opportunity for sustainable development in terms of jobs in hospitality and its spin-off by reducing the unemployment rate. But the multiple heritage with the brand UNESCO and the other heritage occurred in Sicily would not allow alone adequate progress of the region; it is necessary to hav

La grave crisi ambientale in atto ci induce a riflettere in che modo fenome- ni generati dallo sviluppo capitalistico e da urban sprawl, come il consumo di suolo, contribuiscano a determinare fenomeni di inaridimento e desertifica- zione del suolo, impattando sull’ambiente e sulla salute umana. Il consumo di suolo rappresenta la principale causa di desertificazione e degradazione am- bientale, in quanto determina processi irreversibili in cui si perdono le capaci- tà biologiche del suolo, contribuendo a ridurre la qualità della vita degli esseri viventi e accelerando i cambiamenti climatici. Questo lavoro affronta la problematica del consumo del suolo nell’ambito delle strategie per la riconversione ecologica, proponendo un’analisi dell’im- patto ambientale causato dal crescente e l’inarrestabile consumo di suolo, ri- sorsa naturale rilevante per il mantenimento dei servizi ecosistemici. In questo studio è adottata una prospettiva interdisciplinare al fine di met- tere in relazione i processi generati dalle scelte di consumo che si riversano e hanno un impatto sulla quantità e qualità del manto della Terra, la riduzio- ne, delle aree di produzione agricola e con esse i meccanismi di regolazione del clima e in particolare il generarsi di fenomeni estremi. Verrà dato rilievo all’obiettivo Europeo del “consumo del suolo zero” da raggiungere entro il 2050 e alla necessità di porre un adeguato sforzo internazionale per fissare un obiettivo più ravvicinato nel tempo in relazione al crescente consumo di suolo, per conseguire l’obiettivo di un uso sostenibile delle risorse ambientali e migliorare la produttività ecosistemica, arginare e contenere la degradazione del suolo, contribuendo a mitigare i cambiamenti climatici.

Numerous crises that follow and intersect with each other generated the complexity of our time. Environmental, Social, and Economic effects are spread out on a local and global scale. What is the main characteristic of the crisis of our time? Is our time characterized by an invisible climate crisis accentuated by the hoarding of global natural resources, or the crisis we are experiencing is of an economic and military nature and leads us to rethink the economic and cultural models characterized by the forces of domination of our time? How do the multiple crises on social aspects manifest themselves within local communities? What can be a synthesis of the period we are experiencing under the fractures that the inhabitants of Gaia, the protagonists of this time, are called to mend? This article proposes an analysis of the main phenomena that are characterizing the twenty-first century, following the traces of the structures of domination and power inherited from the previous centuries, but which are already conducting humanity towards a new geological, the Anthropocene. This paper explores the interdependence between ecosystems, climate, biodiversity, and the human sciences to understand the need and urgency to stay within the relative threshold of 1.5° global temperature to ensure human survival.

Well-being society has come up by following the economic growth and development model. It has resulted in dysfunctions in the global society and the environment. Capitalism, as determinant of the consumer society, has given rise in individuals a deep sense of discomfort which can be seen in the widespread growing sense of loneliness, anxiety, depression and a general sense of disadvantage; contemporary societies are more and more crumbled, individualistic as well as subject to violence. The breakdown of our times is given by distance between mass culture and natural systems, the consumer society is the main responsible of the anthropic effect that every year determines the increasing the ecological footprint in the Earth by putting risk the availability of natural resources (that are depleting) and with so the human survival. Human and natural environments crumble together, so it is fundamental to systematize the complexity of modernity by embedding the topic of lifestyles, consumption, and the Anthropocene to look for happiness and wellness. It is possible make a social change with a participative approach, in which human, social and environmental health will benefit just by adopting sustainable lifestyles, endorsing sobriety and naturality, as well as renouncing the materialism of the consumer society and given value to the natural and cultural wealth.

This article analysed the socio-economic and environmental impact of the UNESCO World Heritage serial property of the "Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalù and Monreale" on the city of Palermo in the four years following the recognition of its Outstanding Universal Value by UNESCO and the site's inclusion on the World Heritage List in 2015. The UNESCO brand has an extraordinary appeal for travellers and, conversely, this opportunity can turn a city with thousands of years of history into a mass tourism destination. Scant attention has given to the environmental quality of the tourism it attracts, although it may foster growth in the local economy in the short term, and in the medium to long term overtourism may undermine local cultural and social traditions and push the city to the limits of its carrying capacity.