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In European lowlands, remnants of natural forests are rare, small, fragmented and often endangered. Most of the recent EU environmental policies have included such habitats in protected areas. However, nature conservation measures may conflict with traditional forest management, such as coppicing. We used a space-for-time approach to assess the effect of two contrasting silvicultural practices (coppicing vs. conversion to high forest) on composition and structure of plant community. Plant diversity was calculated as overall and single vegetation layer value. Functional diversity was evaluated in terms of functional richness, evenness and divergence. Our findings showed that coppice age has a strong effect on taxonomical and functional diversities, which generally decreased from young to mature stands. Species composition was significantly changed with coppice age and after the conversion to high forest, showing that traditional coppicing may contribute to sustaining habitat heterogeneity and key taxa for nature conservation. The abandonment of coppicing in the area might lead to a general landscape and habitat simplification, a weakening of the system functions and the loss of crucial species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored the sub-national implementation of the Pan-European Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for Sustainable Forest Management in Italy, based on the statistical analysis of answers to a questionnaire provided by representatives of the Italian sub-national forest administrations. The questionnaire explored the implementation of C&I in five applications and through the analytical lenses of ‘suitability of C&I to sub-national contexts’ and ‘adaptability of administrations to C&I’. The analysis of suitability and adaptability made it possible to identify and compare challenges in, and successful experiences with, the implementation of C&I, which were then used to formulate recommendations aimed at encouraging implementation and promoting academic and policy debate. The study reveals that C&I were implemented to a moderate extent. This level of implementation was determined most of all by the suitability of C&I to the Italian sub-national contexts, and less by the adaptability of administrations. Recommendations to foster implementation of and dialogue on C&I include the need for Italian sub-national administrations to transpose the Pan-European C&I into sub-national sets tailored to local circumstances by, for example, modifying existing C&I or integrating these into new customized indicator sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]