The eco-credits of the Apennine Park are the new frontier of sustainable development

The woods of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines have a billion trees, "they are our Amazon"

PARMA – Another recognition for sustainability credits. The project launched two years ago by Tuscan-Emilian Apennines Park on the ecosystem services offered by forests was presented today as a virtuous example of a tool for sustainable development in a seminar of Asvis, the network of over 300 subjects engaged since 2016 in the realization in Italy of the 17 objectives of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.The working day, which took place in the headquarters of the Province of Parma with the patronage of the Region, ended with the ceremony in which - in full transparency - the Park Authority delivered the credit certificates to the over 30 companies that they bought them in 2023.

The credits are in particular linked to ecosystem services - absorption of Co2, wood, reduction of hydrogeological risk, but also offer of recreational and tourist spaces– that forests can offer if managed sustainably.In the case of the National Park, the two bodies Pefc and Fsc, which apply scientific accounting standards for natural assets, guarantee the implementation of good environmental practices on 26,000 hectares of green areas (the largest surface area in Italy subject to certification). The credits generated are then sold to companies, cooperatives, and even individual citizens who use them to offset the polluting emissions of their activities that cannot otherwise be eliminated. Finally, the proceeds also go to remunerate mountain communities (in many cases collective owners of the forests) due to the higher costs resulting from non-traditional practices.

According to Asvis, therefore, the national park project not only does it represent a pioneering example of the economic valorisation of ecosystem services (the request for a national law on the subject strongly emerged from the conference), but also an element to be considered to rebalance, in urban planning, the relationships between internal areas at risk of depopulation and cities.Meanwhile, credit production last year saw an increase of 272% compared to 2022:they went from 4,009 to 14,933.Of these, 3,600 were sold, for an economic value of 105,000 euros.The Park Authority's estimate for 2024 is to double this figure "and even reach 400 or 500,000 euros", says president Fausto Giovannelli.Who comments:“Ours is a concrete and ongoing initiative to apply the concepts of environmental accounting and the measurement of ecosystem services”.

The woods of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, Giovannelli continues, “they have about a billion trees.They are our Amazon, an important heritage to be removed from the 'abandonment' and 'slash and burn' pair and to be included in an idea of ​​sustainable, circular development, and also of the relationship between the Apennines and the cities and between the producers of ecosystem services and their beneficiaries".In his speech Giovannelli then praises civic uses, collective properties of large wooded areas, which "according to many are remnants of the Middle Ages but have instead demonstrated great sensitivity towards a vision that is a sort of cultural revolution for the Apennine woods". A sensitivity and culture that was evidently hidden in the ridge communities we encountered“, concludes the president of the national park.

Among the 30 new credit holders are the catering cooperative giant Cirfood, the Reggio Emilia social coop the Sheepfold and the Bolognese cooperative bank which, through its young members committee, purchased 50 sustainability credits, equal to 50 tons of CO2.