An Overview of forest cover and management in Italy

Over the centuries, alongside multiple changes in socio-economical conditions, needs and technical possibilities, Italian forest and forest management have gone through a dynamic and complex evolution process. In the last decade, forest lands in Italy have been constantly growing and nowadays cover almost 11 million hectars, accounting for 36.4% of the total National territory. Several quantitative and qualitative aspects of forest resources, regarding species composition, actual and available stock, ownership, volume of utilization, accessibility, terrain features and others, have been described through the analysis of the National Forest Inventory (INFC2005). The most represented forest typology is »coppice with standards«, while many forests are in a mature stage, waiting for conversion to transitional stands. Concerning forest logging, full length harvesting and winching-skidding extraction are the most widespread systems, but in many areas the low-openness conditions represent a limiting factor for logging distances, expecially in high slope classes, where sustainable and cost-effective operations are primary. The modern solutions allowed by technological progress, in addition to the growing environmental awareness and need of a sustainable management at multiple level require an efficient forest communications management and professional formation of operators, in a challenging scenario that Italy is called to approach.