Things would be like this: either the Italian woodcutters have decided to fold their arms, or the public planning plans for our forest heritage are completely missing. But, fortunately, the reality is slightly different: the woods are growing compared to past years (and this is already good news), but the uncultivated ones would increase more and more. The photograph of the Italian forest heritage comes from the third National Inventory of forests and forest carbon reservoirs (here an excerpt) made by the Forestry, Environmental and Agri-food Unit Command of the Carabinieri in collaboration with Crea (Council for research in agriculture and analysis for agricultural economics), in addition to the contribution of the Forestry Corps of the Regions and Autonomous Provinces. A very important inventory if we consider that it has been published a few weeks after the Cop26 appointment in Glasgow, Scotland, during which the point will also be made on the so-called forest reservoirs of the whole world: Fundamental to fight climate change, remembers Diego Florian, director of Fsc Italia, whose brand identifies products containing wood from forests managed in a correct and responsible manner according to rigorous environmental, social and economic standards.
Experts, wandering through the woods and forests of the beautiful country, talk about lights and shadows. If on the one hand, in fact, 36.7 per cent of Italy is covered by woods, an area increased by 18.4 per cent in about ten years (587 thousand hectares), reaching eleven million hectares; on the other hand, the coppice woods and high forests, those that produce firewood, have the same extension as the previous inventory, ie 3.8 million hectares. But the CO2 absorption capacity of forest tanks also increased, passing from 490 million tons sixteen years ago to 569 today. It is true, these are very encouraging numbers for our woods: unfortunately, however, the vast majority of them are in a state of neglect, both on the public and private side, Florian observes, underlining that only 9.5 per cent of coppices in the ‘juvenile’ phase and just 1.2 per cent ‘in renewal’, a very low figure, which we can interpret with a very limited presence of human activities related to the forest.
43% rational management only in Trentino
Going into a little more detail, it is not that things change positively. Dwelling on the average wooded area subjected to rational management techniques, we discover that only Trentino Alto Adige has a very high percentage, 43.4 percent. The rest of Italy? A paltry 11 percent underwent deforestation and renewal techniques with young plants. In short, it is necessary to act quickly to preserve the forest heritage through proper public planning. By the way: “The percentage of forest with detailed plans is quite limited on the national territory: 15.3 percent. And also decreasing ”, concludes Florian.
Cutting well helps the resource
But the problem of sustainable forest management is not linked only to the environment. There are, in fact, some very important economic implications. I would like to understand why in the countries of Northern Europe the forest wood harvest reaches 70 percent from renewed plants, while in Italy we are stuck at 25 percent. Gabriele Calliari, president of Federforeste, has an answer, and how. His is more a provocation: in Italy, many are still convinced that cutting a forest is like destroying it: in reality, if the result of careful planning, the forest would become even more of a resource.