PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Coppicing, a traditional way of forest management, has been adopted across Europe, particularly in southern countries. In Italy, there are around 3.7 million hectares of coppice (42% of the total forest area according to the FAO definition). Coppice forests provided a range of forest ecosystem goods and services (FGS), from energy (fire wood) and construction material to the extraction of tannins, mushrooms, honey, cork, fodder, fruit, pharmaceutical and aromatic plants. They also represent a favourable environment for hunting. In the past, coppice forests were heavily exploited by growing populations and emerging industries. As the use of non-renewable materials increased, however, coppices lost importance and were neglected or converted. More recently, coppicing is undergoing a renaissance because of its adaptive ecology, stability, protection function, contribution to biodiversity and its use as a source of renewable bioenergy. Forest and environmental resources, however, must be used sustainably.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE FutureForCoppiceS project aimed to demonstrate the sustainability of different management approaches. Existing and newly collected data on consolidated Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) indicators would be evaluated to demonstrate the value of different approaches in ensuring provision of FGS. In this way, it planned to contribute to the knowledge base for SFM and support resource efficiency-related policy.
The project also aimed to test, demonstrate and disseminate the value of SFM indicators. LIFE FutureForCoppiceS planned to use consolidated SFM indicators and develop new methodsfor the collection and reporting of new, functionally oriented ones. This would demonstrate an indicators ability to assess the effects of different management approaches and evaluate its applicability within the project context and beyond. It thus planned to broaden the knowledge base and strengthen confidence in SFM reporting. Finally, the projected aimed to demonstrate the potential effects that different approaches can have on large geographical scales. Results would be organised in relation to the distribution/extent of the concerned European forests types located in Tuscany and Sardinia.
RESULTS
LIFE FutureForCoppiceS tested 38 Indicators for the first time on coppices within the six SFM criteria: 12 consolidated indicators and 26 new indicators were analysed and fine-tuned to be tailored to coppice forests and to the stand/management unit scale. Of these tested indicators 26 were shown to be appropriate (nine consolidated and 17 new ones) in terms of reliability, replicability and cost. Seven of these indicators proved to be accurate for discriminating between different management options: carbon stock, growing stock, total above ground tree biomass, understorey cover, net revenue, energy and recreation.
The simulations carried out showed that adopting the three different management options traditional coppicing, natural evolution, active conversion to high forest coexistence is the best way to ensure the sustainability of the natural areas.
The production of six manuals (one for each criteria) assured the dissemination of project methods dealing with the new SFM Indicators. In addition, the project database, which is available on the website following registration, offers a comprehensive overview, while an overall and integrated synthesis of the project results was carried out. These tools support the replication and transfer of project methods, results and achievements.
FutureForCoppiceS was selected as a best practice by the GOProFOR LIFE project (GIE/IT/000561) GOod PRactices implementation netwOrk for FORest biodiversity conservation. Additionally, the region of Tuscany and Forestas Agency produced two steering documents in which the results of the project were presented to regional forest services to help them draw up forest management plans. Project methods and results were presented at more than 60 dissemination events, reaching more than 1 300 stakeholders including policy makers, forest operators and technicians. A final workshop enabled data on forest coppices in Italy to be updated in the FOREST EUROPE database.
Furthermore, FutureForCoppiceS established an ongoing cooperation with Rete Rurale Nazionale (national programme of the Italian ministry of agriculture and forests), with potential impacts on the regional rural development policies; the project was identified as a potential source of indicators for the implementation of the set of forest measures under current and future rural development policy.
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).
