How many trees are there in Italy? Which region has the greatest woodland cover? Is forest coverage in Italy increasing or decreasing? Woodlands are a fundamental tool in the fight against climate change and in safeguarding biodiversity. But forests and woodlands are not merely treasure troves of biological diversity — they also play a role in reducing the risks of hydrogeological instability and in purifying and regulating water flows.

Forests are growing

One of the most recent studies, and by far the most comprehensive currently available, is the one produced by the Corpo Forestale dello Stato, together with the research unit for forest monitoring and planning of Crea (Centro di ricerca per le Politiche e la Bioeconomia e Centro di ricerca per le Foreste e il Legno): the Infc (Inventario nazionale delle foreste e dei serbatoi forestali di carbonio). The inventory is now publicly accessible, and all data and documentation from the national forest inventory are available on the official website. The first inventory was produced in 1985, while data for 2014 are now available.

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According to the inventory, Italy's forests and woodlands are in good health and have grown over recent decades. In particular, the national forest area has grown by 5.8 per cent compared to 2005 and stands at 10,987,805 hectares. Of this increase, only 1,700 hectares per year are attributable to afforestation; the remainder is the result of the natural expansion of woodland, consequent on the progressive abandonment of agro-silvo-pastoral activities. This growth has brought Italy's forests to cover 34 per cent of Italy's surface area and 5 per cent of Europe's, placing the country sixth in Europe (excluding Russia).

How are Italy's woodlands doing?

The inventory is also able to provide the number of trees in our country, clearly on a statistical basis: today the count stands at 11,949,630,797 trees, including so-called "tall woodlands" and areas used for arboriculture. Tuscany is the region with the greatest woodland surface area, followed by Sardinia and Piedmont.

But Crea warns: "The advance of woodland does not appear to be the fruit of planning and management activity for the forest and territorial heritage, still less of a careful and widespread environmental awareness. It is instead a natural expansion, due to the progressive abandonment of agro-pastoral activities, above all in rural and mountain areas".

In short, an uncontrolled management situation, which can give rise to dangers and "can be harmful not only to the woodlands themselves, with the risk of fires (in 2014 alone, more than 17,320 hectares of woodland were swept by fire), pest attacks or windstorms, but also to the hydrogeological structure of the land, to public safety, and to the conservation of landscape and biodiversity".

The need for sustainable management

For this reason, researchers place great emphasis on the sustainable and active management of woodlands, which would have a positive impact both economically and in terms of employment. This is also defined as bioeconomy — that is, those sectors linked to the management and exploitation of natural resources, such as woodlands and forests. According to the 2014 Italian agriculture yearbook: "In Italy the value of the bioeconomy, in its broadest sense, can be estimated at over 226 billion euros in 2014, of which 20 per cent is represented by products not intended for human or animal consumption." This means that "efficiency improvements in the use of resources could reduce the need for raw materials by 17–24 per cent by 2030". In short, forests, if managed in the right way, can become a small treasure.

Forests are CO2 stores

But the ecological function of Italy's woodlands, beyond their role as treasure troves of biodiversity, is their capacity to absorb CO2 and help mitigate the effects of global warming and therefore of climate change. Estimates from the Infc 2005 show that "the quantity of organic carbon present in the living above-ground component of Italy's woodlands (living trees, regeneration and shrubs) amounts to 472.7 million tonnes, and the quantity removed from the atmosphere annually amounts to approximately 12.6 million tonnes." To these figures must be added the quantities relating to dead wood, litter and soil. It thus emerges that Italy's woodlands retain a total of 1.24 billion tonnes of organic carbon. An enormous amount that makes our forests a treasure to be guarded, protected and preserved.