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The Italian forest area has been increasing for several decades, but it is largely under conditions of abandonment due to the suspension of any form of active management. The article highlighted the positive aspects and the critical issues inherent in this situation. On a landscape scale, abandonment is seen as a positive factor that can determine the improvement of biodiversity over time but, since it mainly affects the forests of mountain areas, there is a real risk of compromising important protective functions that contribute to guaranteeing the quality of life of local communities, especially in the face of climate change. Logging operations always have a significant impact on stands but only through silviculture, if implemented with a systemic approach, it is possible to give the forest structure and composition that make it adequate to carry out protective functions. Forestry must therefore be relaunched as a tool to guarantee biological functionality, perpetuity and the use of the forest, increasing resistance, resilience and adaptability of the ecosystems in the face of global change

Forests are widely recognized as important landscape elements which contribute to human health and well-being. They provide benefits derived from direct and indirect experiences of contact with nature by reducing psychological and physical stress, thus creating positive feelings and facilitating the recovery of psychological resources. In order to establish or manage forests for recreational purposes, it is essential to know which forest stand structure features and indicators are linked to actual or perceived psychological restoration. The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between individual factors, perceived restorativeness, stand structure attributes and self-reported physical-psychological benefits obtained when visiting woodlands in urban or peri-urban areas especially coastal Italian stone pine forests using a quantile regression approach. Perceived restorativeness components such as ‘being-away’, ‘fascination’ and ‘compatibility’ emerged as significant predictors of visitors’ perceived psychological benefits, showing a positive and significant association in all of the quantiles under study. Stand density, measured by basal area per hectare of understory trees and shrubs negatively influences the perception of the benefits obtained, holding constant the other covariates.

International audience; Context: European Union policies for sustainable development converge towards the enhancement of forest resources. Hypothesis: enlargement of the range of wood products and increase in timber products usage can only be achieved if these products are more competitive than conventional.Aims: With respect to conifer timber, chestnut timber has competitive characteristics. However, chestnut timber has had very few opportunities for market development in the last decades. As result of its competitiveness margins, the laminated chestnut beams process has recently developed.For this product, a conventional market or competitiveness space has been established as well as its extension in relation to non-market characteristics.Methods: Market space has been defined by determining - the producer’s reserve price limits, using the cost approach criteria; - the consumer’s upper limit, using the market comparison approach; - the expansion of the upper limit for the non-market characteristics, the environmentally friendly consumer price, determined through interviews with a sample of responsible consumers.RResults Limits are: - the producer’s reserve price is 752.68 €/m3 - the consumer’s reserve price is 918.77 €/m3 - in the main regional market (Rome district), the environmentally friendly consumer’s price is 1164.08 €/m3.Conclusion: Knowledge of the various market limits of chestnut timber allows producers to assess its competitive margins. Conservation over time of these margins, however, requires dedicated governance, as well as the adoption of a forest strategy aimed at promoting the timber production quality and a marketing plan to promote the knowledge of the characteristics of chestnut wood (market and non-market characteristics) and increase the number of responsible consumers.

The ecological and economic relevance of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) has long been related to its widespread geographical distribution and multipurpose product potential. In Central Italy, chestnut management represents a paradigmatic example of the potential conflict between landowner targets and biodiversity conservation: options for preserving stand-scale biodiversity are not fully considered as current management is based on monospecific, even-aged coppice stands and clearcutting on wide areas. Relationships between silvicultural treatment and floristic diversity of chestnut coppices are here investigated focusing the attention on rotation length and on the role of thinning. Seven coppice stands were selected in such a way to be of similar size (about 10 ha) and to cover a wide range of ages and a different number of thinnings. Plot sampling was performed across the stands and their floristic diversity was compared and analyzed by means of indicators in order to assess statistical relations...

This is the final paper of: Multifactor empirical mapping of the protective function of forests against landslide occurrence: statistical approaches and a case study- published iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry,Volume 9,Issue 3, Pages 383-393 (2016) doi:https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor1740-008Published: Jan 16, 2016 - Copyright © 2016 SISEF Abstract Forests are increasingly valued for services beyond timber and non-timber products including land protection with respect to events such as landslides, soil erosion, floods and avalanches. The most important properties of a protective forest are its ecological and mechanical stability. Planning and implementing multifunctional forest management in protective forests is challenging because of the trade-offs and synergies among the many functions of the forest. In this study, a multifactor empirical method is presented for assessing the protective role of forests on a stand scale with respect to landslide occurrence. Multifactor methodologies typically estimate landslide susceptibility exploiting the relationship between past landslide patterns and site characteristics. Two statistical approaches were here applied to assess the probability of landslide occurrence: the weight-of-evidence technique and the logistic regression technique. Statistical analysis was performed on the basis of landslide detachment zone only. The question of how to estimate protective forest function was answered through the comparison of models established with different sets of predicting factors. This study ultimately aims to provide a decision- support tool focused on mapping the potential role of forests in landslideprone areas. A case study from the Italian Alps was considered. The density of landslide detachment outside forest areas proves to be more than twice than that within forest areas.

The ecological and economical relevance of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) has long been related to its widespread geographical distribution and multipurpose product potential. In Italy, chestnut management represents a paradigmatic example of the potential conflict between landowner targets and tree species diversity conservation. Distinctively, the relationships between silvicultural treatment and tree species diversity of chestnut coppices are here investigated by means of diversity profiles to assess tree diversity of six stands in Central Italy. The stands were purposively selected in such a way to be characterized by the same site conditions but with different silvicultural features (age, number of thinning). Plot sampling was performed across the stands and their tree diversity was compared and ordered by means of intrinsic diversity profiles estimated from the sample data. The achieved results suggest alternative suitable options for managing chestnut coppice stands in order to enhance tree biodiversity while maintaining timber production.

During the last decades adapting silvicultural systems to a changed society, increasingly aware of the multifunctional role of forests, was a much debated issue in Italy. Stemming from this discussion is the systemic silviculture concept, an adaptive forest management tool aimed at cultivating the forest as a self-organizing system and focusing on sustaining its functional efficiency as the best way to enhance forest multi-functionality. This concept has much connection with the Ecosystem Approach defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity as a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. In the following a case study is presented where the principles of systemic silviculture are implemented in the management of private and common forest properties in the Serre mountains of the Calabria Region (Italy); relationships with the Ecosystem Approach principles are analyzed in order to evaluate to what extent systemic silviculture can be regarded as a means to bring the EA to the implementation level.