For Earth Day 2021 we spoke with Paolo Kovatsch, the official in charge of recovering the areas of the province of Trento destroyed by Storm Vaia.
"Restore our earth", literally "let's restore our planet". This is the powerful message launched by the 2021 edition of Earth Day on 22 April. A mission that concerns us all and takes on an even deeper significance between Veneto and Trentino, where on 29 October 2018 Storm Vaia razed to the ground the Norway spruce forests described in Mario Rigoni Stern's novels. Estimates put the damage at 42,800 hectares affected and 14 million cubic metres of timber felled across Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Lombardy. More than two years on from the disaster, patient and expert work is under way to repair the damage and give the forest a new lease of life. We asked Paolo Kovatsch, technical director of the Provincial Agency for State Forests of the Autonomous Province of Trento, who oversees recovery and restoration work in the province's publicly owned woodland areas, for an update.
What has been done so far to restore the forest?
Storm Vaia was an exceptional event that caught everyone off guard, because on the southern side of the Alps there was no recorded historical precedent for it — or at least not across such a vast area, stretching from Friuli all the way to the eastern part of Lombardy. Beyond the initial disorientation and mental shock, it meant we had to organise ourselves and work out how to proceed.
The first task was to restore the forest road network in order to begin recovering the timber that had been brought down. Things are going reasonably well now: in Trentino we have recovered at least two thirds of the timber and sold 70 per cent of it. This is, however, the last year in which we will be able to find timber that still has some economic value, because the wood deteriorates after three years on the ground. Around 10–15 per cent will remain where it is, because it lies in areas that are unreachable — where there are no access roads or where intervention would be too costly.
The timber needs to be recovered to offset the economic damage suffered by the various landowners — in the state forests, for example, the storm felled an amount equal to 17–18 times what was harvested in a single year — and to allow reforestation to proceed. The latter is necessary for three reasons: first, there is a question of land safety, since the forested areas protected settlements and public roads from rockfalls and avalanches; then there are landscape and economic considerations as well.
What are the next steps, after recovering the fallen timber?
With the exception of certain particularly sensitive areas in which the province is stepping in directly, each landowner will be able to decide what to do about rebuilding the forest cover. Reforestation requires a certain financial commitment, so choices will have to be made. Moreover, the felled woodland is not homogeneous throughout. At medium to low elevations, where there may already have been shrubs or young trees, the forest will close over on its own within a few years; in other areas, planting will be needed.
What will the differences be between the old forest, made up mainly of Norway spruce, and the new one?
In some areas the restoration work began last year, but in the state forests it will start this year at Paneveggio and San Martino di Castrozza. Since hunting has been suspended for many years, the presence of wild ungulates — deer in particular — is exceptionally high: this means that the saplings planted will need to be protected to prevent the animals from systematically damaging them. Site inspections with the companies involved are taking place right now to plan adequate enclosures inside which the new trees will be planted.
In some areas the new forest may differ from the old one; in others, not very much. At Paneveggio, where the climate is very harsh, besides Norway spruce it is realistically possible to plant larch or, to a lesser extent, Swiss stone pine. In the Cabino forest, on the other hand, the climate is relatively cold but far more humid, making it suitable for other species too, such as silver fir, beech, cherry and lime.
What are the expected timescales?
What remains difficult for us humans to accept is that the work carried out over these ten years will produce a fully grown forest in a hundred or two hundred years' time. Human beings tend to set themselves time limits that correspond to the span of their own awareness, but the forest moves at a far slower pace.
Let me give an example. In 1966, a severe flood brought down a large area of the Cadino state forest. At Paneveggio, the trees were cut during the First World War. No one, walking through those forests before Vaia, could have imagined that "only" fifty or a hundred years earlier there had been nothing there. Their evolution is a very complex process.
You mentioned the question of financial commitment. For the Vaia forest restoration, the province will draw on the government fund worth 1.29 million euros. Are there other sources of funding, public or private?
Alongside the government fund, various projects have been launched, both in Trentino and elsewhere. For instance, there is the Trentino Tree Agreement, a voluntary fundraising initiative that several companies, as well as private individuals, joined from the outset. This money will be used primarily for the reforestation of certain state forests. In the meantime, we have got the work under way and the province has allocated funds in addition to those it will recover from the state. In short, the financing has been there.
But is a figure like 1.29 million euros, measured against the operations you have to carry out, high or low?
Let me give a few examples to convey a sense of scale. Seedlings were provided free of charge to private landowners. Planting a single seedling, including labour, costs 6–10 euros. As state forests, we will also be putting up enclosures costing 60–70 euros per linear metre. The enclosures will be built in a patchwork pattern, with a certain spacing, to leave room for wildlife and also, quite simply, for mushroom pickers who want to go for a walk in the woods. Seen in this light, an enclosure of this kind can cost anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 euros. To rebuild several hectares of forest between Paneveggio and San Martino di Castrozza, we have designed and costed interventions amounting to around 500,000 euros.
Earth Day 2021 is dedicated to ecosystem restoration. What is the hope of someone who, like yourself, works on this professionally?
As I was saying earlier, we humans have a very personalised conception of nature and we always try to bring it back to our own rhythms and our own scale. We can carry out every conceivable study imaginable, but environmental restoration activities will inevitably unfold according to a series of variables that we will never be able to reduce to an algorithm. Nature has its own equilibria: if trees are knocked to the ground, it means that perhaps certain fungi no longer grow, the ants move elsewhere, the capercaillie arrives, and so on. Every intervention brings with it a series of question marks.
With science, experience and sensitivity we can pursue a principle that lies at the heart of a forester's work: durability. We enter this environment, we may extract resources for productive purposes, but while trying to preserve it or even improve it. If, paradoxically, we had left the storm-felled areas exactly as they were, in one or two hundred years they would have restored themselves naturally. We do, however, have our own needs — in terms of slope stability, landscape and economics — and we therefore try to speed up these processes.
Will Storm Vaia remain an absolutely exceptional event, or should we expect it to be the first in a long series?
It was certainly a truly exceptional event for the southern side of the Alps. It could be the first in a series — we don't know. What I can say, after managing state forests for over fifteen years, is that at the level of perception one can observe an intensification of certain events and a greater frequency of stronger, more pronounced episodes. On certain roads or along certain small streams, the light, widespread rainfall in the surrounding areas turns into a concentrated, violent storm that causes severe damage.
