This area extends across 960 hectars in the municipality of Campomarino and includes a coastal environment with a dune complex, which stretches from Ramitelli Wood to the Mouth of the Saccione Torrent.
Here there are prior habitats, even if heavily compromised, like the permanent coastal dunes, which host vegetation of Mediterranean scrub, and the Mediterranean salt steppes. Furthermore there other special habitats, like the moving dunes of the coastline and, behind them, the freshwater swamp forests. These environments host an important fauna, including the Hermann’s Tortoise and the Kentish Plover, and play a key role for other wild species, especially as a place of rest for migratory birds.
If the coastal areas are mostly developed thanks to Summer tourism, the inner ones still presents elements of the rural landscape, made of large land ownerships dedicated to agriculture. The landscape is still featured by the agrarian system, with occasional settlements and self-sufficient farms, keystone of the local economy. From the sea to the inland you meet a miscellaneous landscape, featured by sandy beaches, coastal dunes, Mediterranean scrub, pinewoods, wet zones and agricultural lands. The area of Saccione’s mouth, until recently, was crossed by the Tratturo L’Aquila-Foggia, currently the Adriatic National Road.
The area is part of one of the three Sites of Community Importance on the Molise coast, located in the municipalities of Petacciato, Termoli and Campomarino:
- SIC IT7228221 Foce Trigno – Marina di Petacciato
- SIC IT7222216 Foce Biferno – Litorale di Campomarino
- SIC IT7222217 Foce Saccione – Bonifica Ramitelli
The three SIC sites include zones with low sandy coasts, where small freshwater plains alternate with Holocene dunes: here you have, along the gradient going from the sea to the inland, the typical sequence of psammophile vegetation. Even this area is part of the EU project Lifemaestrale.