Mauro Maesano

Erratum to: Classification of the oldgrowthness of forest inventory plots with dissimilarity metrics in Italian National Parks

The concept of the old-growth forest is highly debated in the literature because of its implications, from close-to-nature forest management to carbon balance. Studies on old-growth forests have multiplied in the last three decades. Most of these studies have focussed on defining the structural features of old-growth forests of non-Mediterranean forest ecosystems or of specific forest types. In Italy, forest structure since Roman times has been greatly influenced by man. For this reason, the concept of old-growth forest in these ecosystems seems more controversial than at the global level. Nonetheless, in the Mediterranean region, there are persistent forest formations that present a certain level of oldgrowthness. These types of forests have been identified mostly in National Parks. The description of forest structure requires a vast amount of information about several biometric attributes. Consequently, the classification of forests as old growth is very time- and resource-consuming. This research aims to describe and test a proposed methodology to classify and determine the relative oldgrowthness of a series of forest inventory plots. Data from 77 beech forest plots located all across Italy were collected and compared with a virtual reference plot. To compare the forest plots, a set of similarity/dissimilarity indexes were tested. The results obtained show that it is possible to accurately rank the oldgrowthness of forest plots and to screen them to exclude non-old-growth forests. The method described was applied for the first time on a set of plots located in the Italian National Parks to determine a priority list of beech forests where further studies need to be conducted.

First mapping of the main high conservation value forests (HCVFs) at national scale: The case of Italy

Abstract Forest certification is one of the many tools that have been developed to achieve sustainable forest management. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was the first organization to develop an independent forest certification scheme in early 1990s. FSC standards introduced the concept of high conservation value forests (HCVFs) that identifies forest areas with high conservation values (HCVs) according to six different categories including environmental services, social and cultural values, rare, threatened or endangered species, and ecosystems and habitats. HCVFs are becoming more relevant even beyond forest certification purposes, and the concept is increasingly being adopted and used as a tool for improving forest management operations. This paper represents a preliminary study for the identification and mapping of the main HCVFs in Italy. It is based on existing information and available datasets and identifies some out of six existing HCVs categories. The extent of forest areas identified as HCVFs in Italy varies according to the HCV category taken into consideration. Altogether, the HCVs investigated correspond to about 66% of the Italian forest. This preliminary study on HCVFs in Italy and GIS tools had proved to be a useful support for the identification and analysis of investigated areas for the purposes of both facilitating certification processes and improved management of national forests.

Social perception of forest multifunctionality in southern Italy: The case of Calabria Region

During the last decades, forest management systems involving multifunctionality were developed and implemented at a local level all over Europe. Recently, the international scientific literature focused on the concept of ecosystem services. The substantial difference between forest functions and ecosystem services is that the former implies the capacity of forest ecosystem to supply goods and services to society, the latter focuses on the benefits that people obtain from the ecosystems. The aim of this paper is to analyse the social perception of the importance of forest functions and threats to forest multifunctionality in four case studies in the south of Italy, in the Calabria Region (Pollino, Sila, Catena Costiera and Serre Calabre). The study was structured in four steps: (i) stakeholder analysis, (ii) questionnaire survey, (iii) statistical analysis of the collected data, (iv) development of importance-threat matrices. At the end of the analysis, 71 representative stakeholders were identified and involved in the survey. Besides, the representative stakeholders were classified into four groups of interest according to their characteristics: public administrations, associations-non-governmental organizations, academia and research institutes, professional associations of the forest-wood-energy chain. The stakeholders assigned a level of importance to nine forest functions and to ten threats to multifunctionality using a 5-point Likert scale. The data analysis was elaborated distinguishing between groups of interest and case study areas. The overall results show that the two forest functions perceived as the most important by the involved stakeholders are biodiversity and landscape conservation, while a low importance was assigned to the productive forest functions. Regarding the threats, the overall results show that the most relevant threats are the forest fires that affect all functions followed by illegal cuttings and forest abandonment. The ranking of forest functions is similar in all four case studies, while the threat evaluations are more linked to local contexts.