Forests are a continuous and invisible presence. They surround us, influence our lives, but we rarely realise this. They are immovable environments: they change, respond to stress, adapt. And they have been doing this for millions of years. And they do it along with us. For centuries, men and women have been using them for wood, water, pasture, shelter and protection from damage. They have crossed them, told of them and made connections with them.
Different compositions, different functions
Woods survive perfectly well without us – and have been doing so for 400 million years – but we cannot live without them. A healthy forest can do a great deal: absorb carbon, conserve water, prevent landslides, provide wood, support our health. But no one forest can do all this, everywhere and at the same time. Every function requires a different structure, composition, form. A young, dense forest does not have the same capacities as a mature and diversified one. But the good news is that we know how to give forests – if necessary – the best form for receiving all the benefits we need from them, and at the same time assure that forests can last and resist the increasingly climatic stress that is becoming harder for even the trees to withstand.
Three key actions
To do this we need three actions: protect, restore, manage. Protect means preventing that which exists from being damaged. Protection is often the most effective and cheapest strategy. This goes for primary tropical forests but also the older stretches of forests still in the heart of Europe and Italy (such as the thirteen UNESCO World Heritage beech forests) which are treasure chests of carbon and biodiversity and lessons to learn on how an undisturbed ecosystem works. Restore means restart the ecological processes we have degraded. Sometimes tree coverage has to be reconstructed after a fire or excessive felling. Other times we have to intervene in eroded soil, water management, fostering the return of vegetation where this cannot be done spontaneously and quickly and effectively enough. Finally, manage means accompanying the evolution of existing forests. Not to standardise them but rather to improve their structure, increase diversity and reduce risks. Sustainable management (which also includes the aware choice of not touching anything, if that is best for everyone) can help a wood to be more resistant to stress, more productive when needed, and more hydro-geologically stable.
To plan is to know: eight virtuous examples
All three actions require careful planning. You cannot intervene everywhere in the same way. You have to know the characteristics of each wood, assessing its priorities and defining its vocation. In some cases, the priority is to preserve biodiversity, in others to protect from landslides and avalanches, in others again provide wood or energy. To do this we need updated data, technical instruments and shared choices. In some areas this is already being done. Some concrete experiences show how aware management can improve the state of the forests and the quality of life of the people who live around them.
Here are eight examples: the Eight Forests, where we can learn how the wood and the human communities can cooperate together.
1 – The Silver Fir in the Casentinesi Forests
Silver fir from the Casentinesi forests has been a precious material for Tuscan buildings for centuries: you will find its beams in Palazzo Pitti and the galere della Signoria. Today, the project A.Bi.E.S. (Abete Bianco Edifici Storici – Silver Fir for Historical Buildings), promoted by the Union of Casentino Mountain Municipalities, aims to use this historical wood to restore monumental buildings once more. The aim is to sustainably use a local material, reducing the imports of wood from countries with high forestry risk and storing CO2 in wooden items, all based on certified forest management guaranteeing the preservation of the woods.
But not all silver fir is the same: the populations in different places have genetic differences that can be seen in their features such as growth speed, ability to adapt to drought periods, resistance to pathogens and the mechanical quality of the wood. Analysing the DNA of 5000 trees from 150 fir populations, the project is identifying the populations with the most suitable characteristics for climate change. This activity assures a more efficient management, suggesting the trees with the best properties for quality restoration of the woods and indicating which seeds to replant in the woods to ensure more resilient regrowth.
2 – The Model Forest of the Florentine Mountains
In this district, in the heart of Mugello, between Florence and Arezzo, forest management is more than just technical, it is social and territorial. The aim is the construct a replicable model of integrated planning, bringing together wood production, protection of biodiversity, damage prevention and engagement of the communities. All the aims are agreed, the management plans drafted according to a participatory model, the forests monitored using advanced technologies and precision forestry practices. The Model Forest is a reference for managing forest territories. It is a concrete demonstration of how woods can be managed well, if all the stakeholders are in a condition to cooperate with suitable tools and a long-term vision.
3 – Natural forestry: Podere Seradino
The Pro Silva Italia association promotes forest management inspired by natural processes and aims to maintain continuous woodland coverage. In Umbria, the Podere Seradino demonstrational forest – one of the six managed nationally by Pro Silva – applied a mosaic of techniques, including the creation of complex, irregular structures, planting groups of trees in cut areas and areas left to evolve naturally. The aim is to obtain quality wood, improve the stability of the woodland and promote the natural reproduction of the woods, with no artificial reforestation or clearcutting. A wood where natural processes are supported, left free to grow, is more able to withstand climatic stress and even produce more wood.
4 – The Ban de Ville wood in Courmayeur
Just a stone’s throw from the centre of Courmayeur, the Ban de Ville wood is an example of forest management that combines protection from damage, production and sustainable tourism. Here, woodland management has the primary role of assuring hydro-geological safety, giving the wood the best form for preventing avalanches and slowing the landslides that could threaten the town. Work is done on the composition, privileging stable, well-rooted species; on the structure, promoting the regular and stratified distribution of the trees; on the elements of stability, including the stumps, fallen trunks and dead wood, which slow the water and withhold the soil.
At the same time, the wood is produced for local use, while the footpaths and equipped areas are used by local people and tourists.
5 – Fire prevention in Valle di Susa
After the great fires of October 2017, Valle di Susa in Piedmont adopted a new approach to fire prevention. The PRe-FEu project planned forestry interventions with a view to preventing fires across 300 hectares of local territory. Through selective pruning, the opening of ‘green’ fire-break paths, the application of prescribed fire and pastures, the forest has increased its ability to withstand fires. An Integrated Fire Prevention Plan was drafted with the cooperation of forestry consortia, universities, local businesses and mountain communities. The wood harvested from the woods during these interventions was used in local processing chains. The PRe-FEu experience was also used as a pilot study by the Piedmont region, which in September 2025 issued guidelines for territorial forest fire prevention plans across the whole region.
6 – Mount Amiata: forest bathing
On Mount Amiata in Tuscany, three beech woods were certified as the first in Italy suited for improving human health and well-being, through the forest bathing technique. Not all the woods are suited for these activities: mature forests, with tall, filtering crowns, clear undergrowth, high biodiversity, peace and natural surroundings. The sensory experience of immersion requires a combination of light, sound, space and odours to foster physical and mental regeneration. A special mark was impressed on the bark of the trees to make the footpaths, integrated by signs and training of local guides.
7 – Forest Sharing
One of the main problems in managing forests in Italy is the fragmentation of real estate. Forest Sharing is a platform for networking small landowners, technicians and businesses to launch a common management. They use drones, sensors, 3D surveying and digital tools to facilitate the aggregation of and access to supply chains. In Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the NET.Fo project worked on the problem from a different standpoint: that of the damage caused by extreme events. After the Vaia storm and the spread of the bark beetle, the affected woods had to be recovered, with urgent, targeted interventions in areas not already covered by existing forest management plans. Engaging private woodland owners was fundamental in preventing the areas affected from becoming hotbeds of further propagation. In this way, even in difficult conditions, woodland management took on a new role: not merely production or preservation but adaptation to climate change.
8 – Urban forests in Milan
Since 1983, Parco Nord Milano has planted five more hectares of woodland every year in previously abandoned agricultural areas. Today this experience is a permanent laboratory, studying growth, monitoring transformations, experimenting new planting techniques and caring for new trees. The woods planted today are different from those of the 1980s: curved layouts with shrub layers protecting the trees from the summer heat and species that are resilient to climate change. The Park has developed a forest management plan to adapt woods to the new environmental conditions, and today this recovery continues with the creation of habitats adapted to biodiversity – from ‘blooming motorways’ for wild pollinators to new ponds for the European green toad, to the release of large dead tree trunks as homes for insects, fungi and bats –, telling three million visitors a year how to recreate a lost ecosystem.
Not standard solutions but possible directions
These eight experiences do not alone solve the great environmental issues, but show a possible direction. There is a key element in each one: knowledge, cooperation, adaptation, continuity. There are no standard solutions. Every forest is unique, and demands different tools, different choices and different times. In all the situations we have described, the woods are not treated as a subject to be removed, suffered or forgotten. They are interlocutors. Living systems to be listened to, understood and accompanied.
This does not mean that we must intervene everywhere or turn every wood into a source of income. It means deciding what we want from each territory, giving it a function, and building a strategy around that. Including the choice of “letting nature take its course”, provided that we know and accept the consequences. Where protection is needed, we protect the forests. Where wood is needed, we combine the economy with the protection of carbon and biodiversity. Where social value can be generated, we build alliances between the wood and those who live it every day.
References:
Compagnia delle Foreste (2022). podcast Ecotoni, 2022, https://open.spotify.com/show/0TZNlu8g1At7auLbY7eJbS
Rete Rurale Nazionale, Rapporto sullo stato delle foreste e del settore forestale in Italia, 2019 https://www.reterurale.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/19231
Rete Rurale Nazionale, Strategia Forestale Nazionale, 2022, https://www.reterurale.it/foreste/StrategiaForestaleNazionale
Luigi Torreggiani, Il mio bosco è di tutti, Compagnia delle Foreste, 2022
Giorgio Vacchiano, La resilienza del bosco, Mondadori, 2019
Giorgio Vacchiano
Researcher in forest planning and management at the State University of Milan, he studies simulation models to support sustainable forest management, the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change and natural disturbances of European temperate forests. In 2018, Nature magazine named him one of the world’s top 11 emerging scientists who are “leaving their mark on science”. He is a member of SISEF (the Italian Forestry and Forest Ecology Society), coordinating a working group on communication, and of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). He is the chairman of Climate Media Center Italia.
