The park was created in February 2007 to protect and make the most of the Stura di Demonte river and the Gesso torrent, at first within the territory of Cuneo alone. Borgo San Dalmazzo joined in 2011, along with other nearby comuni; then in 2019 a new regional law brought the members to 14, changed the name to Parco naturale Gesso e Stura and extended the protected area to 5,500 hectares and about 70 km of watercourse. Public communications keep the old name, parco fluviale, which in the end describes it better: an ecological corridor acting as a hinge between mountain and plain.
What to see
The richest group is the birds, with 218 recorded species: among the most significant are the bee-eater, the great white egret, the osprey, the short-toed eagle, the little grebe, the hoopoe and the little ringed plover. Among mammals the bulk is made up of bats, from Geoffroy's bat to Leisler's noctule. In the pools and damp meadows you find the pool frog, the Italian tree frog, the green toad, the fire salamander and the crested newt; among reptiles, the green lizard, the dice snake and the slow worm. The watercourses hold marble trout, bullhead and brook lamprey, and the river crayfish holds on, ever rarer. Turkey oak, pedunculate oak, downy oak, privet and hawthorn grow along the banks, and in spring several wild orchids appear.
Visiting
The stretch that concerns Borgo San Dalmazzo is the Gesso. Between the town and Boves, at Tetto Dolce, the banks preserve a priority habitat of the Habitats Directive, the calcareous rocky grasslands: a patch of dry meadow over stone, unshowy and very rare. The sore point should be said too: water abstraction in the reach between the town and the confluence with the Stura often causes total summer dry spells, and anyone arriving in August risks finding a stony bed instead of a torrent. The visitor facilities, meaning the Casa del Fiume with its environmental education centre, the infopoint with bike hire, the multisensory trail and the teaching garden, are at Cuneo instead, a few kilometres from here.
Our editors' tip
From Borgo San Dalmazzo the best move is to take a bicycle and follow the Gesso down towards the confluence with the Stura: a few almost flat kilometres, through the least frequented part of the park. In spring, when there is water, it is the right time for birds; in late summer, if the torrent has dried up, head straight for the Stura instead.