In order to meet its Kyoto Protocol commitment targets, the Italian Government has made relevant investments in forest projects in developing countries through the Clean Development Mechanism. This ...paper investigates the Italian participated afforestation/reforestation (A/R) projects under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, by considering the countries hosting forestry projects, the project areas, the estimated emission reductions, the use of tree species (native/non-native), the issuance of Carbon credits, and the projects’ contribution to sustainable development and technology transfer in general, as stated by the “Project Design Document” of each project. This study utilizes the “Project Design Documents” and “Monitoring Reports” of the registered projects in the United Nations Convention on Climate Change database and data from the BioCarbon Fund database. Results show that, in terms of number of projects, the A/R sector is a prominent component of the Italian CDM portfolio. The financing of the 16 projects by the Italian government, with a total of about 65 k ha planted and an estimated emission reductions of about 556 k tCO2 eq per year, are based on criteria that differ substantially from the ongoing policy adopted for domestic forest interventions.
In the last decades, with the rapid structural changes in society and in consumers’ attitudes at both global and local scale, forest landowners and managers are facing a complex and multi-faceted ...demand, in which the role of forest services - recreation, landscape, biodiversity, C-sequestration amongst others - has become increasingly important. New forest policy tools are therefore required to create or consolidate the shift in forest management from the traditional production function towards more multi-stakeholders and multi-functional goals. On the basis of the existing theoretical background and by means of three explanatory-exploratory case-studies chosen amongst the few experiences present in Italy, the paper seeks to analyse the potentials and challenges in different organisational PES models applied to the provision of forest services in the country, with a special focus on tourism-related environmental services. The analysis shows that the markets for the various forest services have different drivers, sizes and levels of maturity. Performances in effectiveness, efficiency and equity are also highly variable. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for new private and mixed private-public initiatives need therefore to be further explored before assessing the true potential for implementing PES in Italy.
The paper reviews the state of implementation of one of the most relevant mechanisms of payments for environmental services (PES) in the forestry sector: the systems of payments for water-related ...forest services. Three water services with economic relevance are analyzed with reference to the Italian context: hydropower generation, tap-water supply and mineral water use by industry. Using the consolidated definition of PES as a basis for the analysis and considering the regulatory framework on water, we compared the three water-related services to describe the strengths and weaknesses in environmental services provision. From the analysis we deduced that pure PES schemes do not exist in the water sector in Italy, while PES-like schemes driven by public authorities have a relatively long and consolidated tradition, but need to be better oriented and more widely implemented in order to compensate the providers of the services.
Taking into account the last National Report of ISTAT (The Italian National Institute of Statistics), the present paper deals with the astonishing fact that forest chain has not been considered nor ...cited. The importance of woods and timber is highlighted, in connection with the great range of ecosystem services forests are providing to the entire society.
Estimating the profitability trends of poplar plantations under current sectorial public policies. Investments in poplar plantations in the Po valley (Northern Italy), the most important segment of ...timber production for the Italian forest-based sector, are undergoing a decline since more than two decades. The investment level is influenced by both economic variables directly related to the production, such as timber prices, management costs, and land costs, as well as external variables indirectly related to it, such as the opportunity cost of competitive agricultural productions, environmental restrictions, and the presence of subsidies. This paper presents the results of an analysis of trends in timber investment returns from poplar plantations in the Po Valley. In specific, we estimated how these returns have changed in the last 15 years (2001-2015) as a result of the evolution of the key variables of cost and timber price, and assuming a representative plantation management regime. The results show that, in the considered period, poplar timber investments have had a significant decline, with estimated Internal Rate of Returns dropped of 22.1%-44.2% from 2001 to 2015. In specific, the Internal Rates of Returns, when defined and in the base case scenario, ranged from values between 7.1% and 14.0% (2001) to 4.4%-11.0% (2015). Poplar plantations are offering interesting income opportunities only when average timber prices are high, while in all the other cases the investments are at the threshold of economic viability or even negative. The decreased profitability, together with the high variability of potential financial returns, are negatively influencing the attitude towards the investments in poplar plantations. These results are discussed in the light of the recent sectorial public policies. In particular, we focused on the Measures to support plantations of the regional Rural Development Plans, which often proved to be decisive for establishing new plantations and crucial in (de)stabilizing the sector. The lack of a strategic coordination among the northern Italian Regions and the discontinuity of subsidies schemes have contributed to the destabilization of the market.
In Italy 67% of forestlands belong to private, usually small-scale, owners. Understanding landowners' motivations is a crucial element to promote better and more active forest stewardship. This paper ...describes private forest owners' managerial motivations. After a literature review on the issue, motivations are analyzed through a case study in the municipality of Recoaro Terme, located in the outer Alps range, Veneto Region, north-east Italy. Stated reasons for forest management are empirically identified by means of structured interviews to a statistically representative sample of local forest owners. Results show that forests are much more important for their intangible values and firewood self-consumption than for timber selling or other financial benefits. Different classifications of family forest owners are presented. The more helpful one is based on a cluster analysis and leads to the identification of three owners types with different motivations: a group of owners characterized by "Intangible Values", a cluster of the "Multiobjective" owners and a group of "Un-interested" owners. These types show different socio-demographic features, various management, aims and information-seeking behaviour. Communication strategies, and management and assistance programs that might appeal to each type are discussed.
Recently published data on Italian forest removals from FAO and EUROSTAT are still ridden with inaccuracies and underestimation. In this work we show how and why the Italian forestry data collection ...system is in itself unreliable. This represents a major obstacle for designing sector policies, ensuring the flow of forest ecosystem services from the forest to the society, and defining a role for forests, forestry and wood consistent with the European Green Deal and in the NextGenerationEU Recovery and Resilience Facility. A more reliable strategy for data collection is urgently required.
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