The Government removes restrictions on forest cutting to relaunch the wood industry

With an amendment, the Government has removed the obligation to request a landscape authorization from the superintendence in the case of forest cutting.Thus, the arboreal specimens of hundreds of Italian forests, even if located in areas defined as of "considerable public interest", they can be knocked down much more easily.The objective of the amendment, signed by Senator De Carlo, would be precisely to "relaunch the wood industry".A simplification of the bureaucratic burden, not surprisingly, celebrated by various associations linked to the forestry industry.According to the opposition, this is yet another attack on the biodiversity of the Peninsula, as well as on the Constitution which recently also includes the duty to subordinate the protection of ecosystems to economic activities.The reply from the Fratelli d'Italia senator was ready, who guaranteed that "the protections remain", while only the times of interventions "which are often fundamental for the care of forest ecosystems" are being accelerated.

The amendment, approved on 27 September, in particular modified article 149 of the Cultural Heritage Code, expanding the areas where cutting interventions they are not subject to landscape authorization of the Superintendency.The Cultural Heritage Code is a set of rules, partly deriving from the so-called Galasso Law, which considers woods as an integral part of the landscape.But that may no longer be the case.«Every modification to the buildings must pass the examination of the superintendent – ​​underlined the Unitary Group for Italian forests – who however will no longer be able to comment on the cutting of the forests.From today the only political subjects capable of deciding on the fate of Italian forests will be the regions."The scientific association for the protection of Italian forestry heritage has no doubts:they want to cut down more trees in Italy to avoid the import of pellets and woody biomass from other countries, but the problem - they explain - is that in our country too much is burned.In fact, approximately 85% of the wood extracted in Italy is intended for combustion, mainly as firewood.It should therefore not be surprising that the Energy from Wood Biomass association has in the past stood in the way of the now removed landscape restriction, as in the case of forest cuts blocked by the superintendency on Mount Amiata.

However, the National Union of Mountain Municipalities, Communities and Bodies, the Council of the National Order of Agronomists and Forestry Doctors and the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology are also in favor of the law.According to these, the possibility of cutting a forest more easily is actually a good thing since numerous companies have long been asking for effective simplifications to overcome the problem of the landscape 'double constraint' which, in recent years, it would have created numerous bureaucratic burdens on forest management.«The protection of the forest, all its functions, is developed through forestry plans and plans of territorial interest.The useless bureaucratic burdens – explained the Council of Doctors in a note – do not serve the conservation of the forest with solid scientific foundations:it is right to enhance the role and function of professionals.Italian forests currently cover an area of ​​over 11 million hectares:a third of the Italian surface is covered by forests, a figure which has continuously expanded since the Second World War, as forestry professionals we are the first to desire the protection of the forest and to respect landscape constraints".

[by Simone Valeri]