Management Tools for improving Forest Ecosystem Services and promoting Sustainable Forest Management at Local Level

After the Brundtland report and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, the concept of sustainable development was adopted in the forest arena, recognizing the importance of forest to the whole world. As a consequence, forest management was changed going from sustainability, in terms of sustainable use of the timber production, to the multifunctional role of forests and up to the definition of the concept of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). The acknowledgement of the multifunctional role of forest has led to the increase of the importance of forest resources, and forestry has become a very complex field. The numerous benefits that society receives from forests result in the increased interest of stakeholders, which are often in conflict. The increase of pressure on the demand for multiple uses of forest in the same lands has emphasized the need of new tools for forest management. In response to these issues, many efforts have been made by researchers, although there is still much to do and to learn, because of the current global issues concerning climate change, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity and energy. SFM plays a crucial role for maintaining healthy, diverse and productive forests ensuring the supply of forest services for human needs. Forest planning represents a very important tool to support SFM, but often the traditional knowledge and management tools are not capable of satisfying all the stakeholders’ needs. The formulation of Forest Management Plans, that are acceptable to all stakeholders, requires the balancing of the different interests and decisions because makers have to meet multiple objectives, or in order to get an acceptable balance if objectives conflict. Hence a large scale management, such as the landscape management is required for a better understanding of the joint production or multiple benefits which forest ecosystems provide to human welfare. In the latest years, new tools of forest planning have been developed, with particular emphasis at the ecosystem approach and on the importance of the scale management. Territorial Forest Plan (TFP) represents a new and helpful tool of forest planning to support SFM, aiming to the improvement of the ecological connectivity and ensuring the production of forest ecosystem services. This work stresses the important role of forest planning at territorial level, with particular emphasis on the Natura 2000 site, for allowing the production of ecosystem services such as biodiversity conservation and the water conservation in terms of quality and quantity. Furthermore, it shows three main tools to support SFM with three different case studies. Firstly it demonstrates the role of Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies in monitoring sustainable management model of forest resources in the Logone Valley between Chad and Cameroon (Africa). The second describes the Multi Criteria Decision Analysis approach for mapping forest area with the same priority forest function. Finally, the participatory approach through the application of Indicators Analytic Networks has been described.In seguito al rapporto di Brundtland e alla Conferenza delle Nazioni Unite su Ambiente e Sviluppo (UNCED) del 1992, il concetto di sviluppo sostenibile è stato adottato anche in ambito forestale riconoscendo l’importanza delle foreste per il mondo intero. Questo ha determinato un’evoluzione della gestione forestale, passando dalla sostenibilità della produzione legnosa, al ruolo multifunzionale delle foreste, fino a definire il concetto di Gestione Forestale Sostenibile (GFS). La consapevolezza da parte della società, che le foreste svolgono un ruolo multifunzionale, ha favorito una crescita dell’importanza delle risorse forestali, ma al tempo stesso ha aumentato la complessità di questo settore. I numerosi benefici che la società percepisce dalle foreste hanno determinato un aumento dei fruitori di interesse, spesso in conflitto tra loro. L’aumento della pressione sulle foreste per la produzione di più funzioni nella stessa superficie, ha evidenziato l’esigenza di nuovi strumenti di gestione forestale. Per rispondere a queste esigenze, numerosi sforzi in ambito scientifico sono stati fatti, ciononostante, c’è ancora molto da fare e da imparare, a causa delle attuali questioni globali riguardanti i cambiamenti climatici, la perdita di biodiversità, la scarsità di acqua e di energia. Il ruolo della GFS è cruciale per conservare la vitalità, la biodiversità e la produttività delle foreste, garantendo la produzione dei servizi forestali per i fabbisogni umani. La pianificazione forestale è uno strumento molto importante a supporto della GFS, ma spesso le conoscenze e i tradizionali strumenti di gestione non sono sufficienti per soddisfare le numerose aspettative dei fruitori di interesse. La redazione di Piani di Gestione Forestale, affinché sia accettabile da tutti i fruitori di interesse, richiede un’attenta valutazione dei diversi benefici e delle scelte da parte dei decisori, al fine di soddisfare più obiettivi, oppure per raggiungere un compromesso, nel caso in cui gli obiettivi sono in conflitto. Per questo è necessaria una gestione a scala di livello più ampia, per esempio a scala di paesaggio, in modo tale da favorire una migliore conoscenza del valore complessivo e dei numerosi benefici che le foreste forniscono per il benessere umano. Negli ultimi anni, nuovi strumenti di pianificazione forestale sono stati sviluppati, con particolare attenzione all’approccio ecosistemico e all’importanza della scala di gestione. Il Piano Forestale di Indirizzo Territoriale (PFIT) rappresenta un utile e innovativo strumento di pianificazione forestale a supporto della GFS, con l’obietto di migliorare la connettività ecologica assicurando la produzione di servizi ecosistemici delle foreste. Il presente lavoro evidenzia l’importante ruolo della pianificazione forestale a scala territoriale, con particolare riferimento ai siti di Natura 2000, per promuovere la fornitura di servizi ecosistemici, quali la conservazione di biodiversità e la tutela della qualità e quantità dell’acqua. Inoltre, presenta tre principali strumenti di GFS, in tre differenti casi di studio. Il primo illustra il ruolo dei Sistemi Informativi Territoriali (SIT) per il monitoraggio di modelli di gestione sostenibile delle risorse forestali nella Valle del Logone, a confine tra Ciad e Camerun (Africa). Il secondo descrive l’applicazione dell’analisi multicriterio per identificare aree forestali con la stessa funzione prioritaria. L’ultimo caso studio tratta del processo partecipativo utilizzando gli indicatori di gestione forestale, attraverso la Network Analysis.Dottorato di ricerca in Difesa e qualità delle produzioni agro-alimentari e forestali (XXIV ciclo

Explore inhabitants’ perceptions of wildfire and mitigation behaviours in the Cerrado biome, a fire-prone area of Brazil

Fire represents an important natural feature of Brazilian landscape, especially in the Cerrado biome. The Cerrado is the economic livelihood of thousands of people from rural areas in Brazil. It is one of the most important hotspot of biodiversity in the world but also it is a fire-prone area thanks to the high flammability index of the vegetation. Residents and native people of this environment use fire very frequently. The majority of wildfires are caused by humans, though there are some aggravating natural factors affecting the risk, intensity and severity of wildfires. Since residents are continuously involved in fire suppression activities, understanding their perceptions is important for the decision makers who must assess the local capacity to preserve natural resources. This study explores perceptions about wildfire risk and fire mitigation behaviors within three municipalities of the state of Tocantins (Brazil). The study demonstrates that survey participants perceived wildfire risk as rather high, although the perceptions were complex and conflicting among interviewees. A wide range of confused perceptions about fire ignition and heterogeneous point of view have carried out form the survey. However, the residence of interviewees and their educational attainment result the variables that significantly (p-value <0.05) affect the inhabitants’ perceptions

Climate-Smart Forestry in Brazil

AbstractBrazil is the second largest forested country in the world with a high level of naturalness and biodiversity richness, playing a significant role in the adoption of mitigation and adaptation strategies to climate change. Although the Brazilian federal government is mainly responsible for the protection of natural ecosystems, the decentralization process, which demands competences of the states and municipalities, allowed the establishment of several agencies and institutions dealing with monitoring, assessment, and management of forest ecosystems through a complex and interrelated number of forest policies. Nevertheless, the deforestation rate, with a consequent loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, represents critical challenges, attracting worldwide attention. The variety of mitigation and adaptation measures adopted over the years represents viable tools to face climate change and to promote climate-smart forestry in Brazil. Notwithstanding the positive effects achieved in the last decade, a better coordination and practical implementation of climate-smart forestry strategies is required to reach nationally and internationally agreed objectives.This chapter aims to depict the Brazilian forestry sector, highlighting the management strategies adopted overtime to counteract climate change

Frozen in the Ashes

Fossil footprints are very useful palaeontological tools. Their features can help to identify their makers and also to infer biological as well as behavioural information. Nearly all the hominin tracks discovered so far are attributed to species of the genus Homo. The only exception is represented by the trackways found in the late 1970s at Laetoli, which are thought to have been made by three Australopithecus afarensis individuals about 3.66 million years ago. We have unearthed and described the footprints of two more individuals at Laetoli, who were moving on the same surface, in the same direction, and probably in the same timespan as the three found in the 1970s, apparently all belonging to a single herd of bipedal hominins walking from south to north. The estimated stature of one of the new individuals (about 1.65 m) exceeds those previously published for Au. afarensis. This evidence supports the existence of marked morphological variation within the species. Considering the bipedal footprints found at Laetoli as a whole, we can hypothesize that the tallest individual may have been the dominant male, the others smaller females and juveniles. Thus, considerable differences may have existed between sexes in these human ancestors, similar to modern gorillas

Estimativa da altura da base das copas com o uso de dados laser scanning aerotransportado (LiDAR)

Lately, data acquisition using Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) with LiDAR technology (Light Detection and Ranging) is becoming promising in the forest field, especially for estimation of dendrometric variables and to evaluate vertical and horizontal structure of the forest. Topographic and forest coverage information are extremely important to forest and natural resources managers. Accurate information on trees height and density are fundamental for planning, but also hard to obtain by conventional methods. The use of modeling associated with LIDAR data allows the researcher to obtain estimates of several other forest variables, such as basal area, diameter, volume, biomass and combustible material. The estimation of the trees base heights with plots of different sizes (10, 15 and 20 meters) showed an standard error of 1.42, 0.95 and 0.82 m, which correspond to 23.62, 15.70 and 13.84%, respectively.&nbsp;Ultimamente, a aquisição de dados usando o Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) com a tecnologia LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) está se tornando promissora no campo florestal, especialmente para estimativa de variáveis ​​dendrométricas e para avaliar a estrutura vertical e horizontal da floresta. As informações topográficas e de cobertura florestal são extremamente importantes para os gerentes de florestas e recursos naturais. Informações precisas sobre a altura e densidade das árvores são fundamentais para o planejamento, mas também são difíceis de obter pelos métodos convencionais. O uso da modelagem associada aos dados do LIDAR permite ao pesquisador obter estimativas de várias outras variáveis ​​florestais, como área basal, diâmetro, volume, biomassa e material combustível. A estimativa das alturas base das árvores com parcelas de diferentes tamanhos (10, 15 e 20 metros) mostrou um erro padrão de 1,42, 0,95 e 0,82 m, o que corresponde a 23,62, 15,70 e 13,84%, respectivamente

Application of climate-smart forestry – forest manager response to the relevance of European definition and indicators

Climate change impacts are an increasing threat to forests and current approaches to management. In 2020, Climate-smart Forestry (CSF) definition and set of indicators was published. This study further developed this work by testing the definition and indicators through a forest manager survey across fifteen member European countries. The survey covered topic areas of demographics, climate change impacts, definition and indicators assessment, as well as knowledge and communication. Overall, forest managers considered the threat of climate change to their forests as high or critical and 62% found the CSF definition clear and concise; however, the minority suggested greater simplification or nuance. Indicators were viewed as comprehensive but too numerous to integrate into management activities. Two highest ranking indicators were ‘Trees species composition’, and ‘Erosion protection and maintenance of soil condition’. Many managers were aware of suitable alternative species, but also stressed that greater resources should focus on exploring adaptable provenances. Demonstration sites and interactive guides were ranked highest for communication and dissemination; however, online multimedia tools and workshops were also ranked highly. Local perspectives on providing more relevant CSF ranged from silviculture systems, finance and funding, education and training, and social awareness, to tree species mixes and development of protective functions. In summary, forest managers were generally open to CSF, but required greater guidance and proof of application.Thanks to the support of the COST Action CLIMO “Climate-smart Forestry in Mountain regions – CA15226” for supporting the research and providing the networks and collaboration. We are grateful to all people who took part at survey providing answers and helpful comments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Italian TREETALKER NETWORK (ITT-Net): continuous large scale monitoring of tree functional traits and vulnerabilities to climate change

20openItalian coauthor/editorThe Italian TREETALKER NETWORK (ITT-Net) aims to respond to one of the grand societal challenges: the impact of climate changes on forests ecosystem services and forest dieback. The comprehension of the link between these phenomena requires to complement the most classical approaches with a new monitoring paradigm based on large scale, single tree, high frequency and long-term monitoring tree physiology, which, at present, is limited by the still elevated costs of multi-sensor devices, their energy demand and maintenance not always suitable for monitoring in remote areas. The ITT-Net network will be a unique and unprecedented worldwide example of real time, large scale, high frequency and long-term monitoring of tree physiological parameters. By spring 2020, as part of a national funded project (PRIN) the network will have set 37 sites from the north-east Alps to Sicily where a new low cost, multisensor technology “the TreeTalker®” equipped to measure tree radial growth, sap flow, transmitted light spectral components related to foliage dieback and physiology and plant stability (developed by Nature 4.0), will monitor over 600 individual trees. A radio LoRa protocol for data transmission and access to cloud services will allow to transmit in real time high frequency data on the WEB cloud with a unique IoT identifier to a common database where big data analysis will be performed to explore the causal dependency of climate events and environmental disturbances with tree functionality and resilience. With this new network, we aim to create a new knowledge, introducing a massive data observation and analysis, about the frequency, intensity and dynamical patterns of climate anomalies perturbation on plant physiological response dynamics in order to: 1) characterize the space of “normal or safe tree operation mode” during average climatic conditions; 2) identify the non-linear tree responses beyond the safe operation mode, induced by extreme events, and the tipping points; 3) test the possibility to use a high frequency continuous monitoring system to identify early warning signals of tree stress which might allow to follow tree dynamics under climate change in real time at a resolution and accuracy that cannot always be provided through forest inventories or remote sensing technologies.openCastaldi, S.; Antonucci, S.; Asgharina, S.; Battipaglia, G.; Belelli Marchesini, L.; Cavagna, M.; Chini, I.; Cocozza, C.; Gianelle, D.; La Mantia, T.; Motisi, A.; Niccoli, F.; Pacheco Solana, A.; Sala, G.; Santopuoli, G.; Tonon, G.; Tognetti, R.; Zampedri, R.; Zorzi, I.; Valentini, R.Castaldi, S.; Antonucci, S.; Asgharina, S.; Battipaglia, G.; Belelli Marchesini, L.; Cavagna, M.; Chini, I.; Cocozza, C.; Gianelle, D.; La Mantia, T.; Motisi, A.; Niccoli, F.; Pacheco Solana, A.; Sala, G.; Santopuoli, G.; Tonon, G.; Tognetti, R.; Zampedri, R.; Zorzi, I.; Valentini, R

Application of climate-smart forestry: forest manager response to the relevance of European definition and indicators

Climate change impacts are an increasing threat to forests and current approaches to management. In 2020, Climate-smart Forestry (CSF) definition and set of indicators was published. This study further developed this work by testing the definition and indicators through a forest manager survey across fifteen member European countries. The survey covered topic areas of demographics, climate change impacts, definition and indicators assessment, as well as knowledge and communication. Overall, forest managers considered the threat of climate change to their forests as high or critical and 62% found the CSF definition clear and concise; however, the minority suggested greater simplification or nuance. Indicators were viewed as comprehensive but too numerous to integrate into management activities. Two highest ranking indicators were ‘Trees species composition’, and ‘Erosion protection and maintenance of soil condition’. Many managers were aware of suitable alternative species, but also stressed that greater resources should focus on exploring adaptable provenances. Demonstration sites and interactive guides were ranked highest for communication and dissemination; however, online multimedia tools and workshops were also ranked highly. Local perspectives on providing more relevant CSF ranged from silviculture systems, finance and funding, education and training, and social awareness, to tree species mixes and development of protective functions. In summary, forest managers were generally open to CSF, but required greater guidance and proof of application