A view from a mountain town down into the Valle Ossola, Piemonte region – credit, Andrew Corbley
For the first time since the Middle Ages, Italy has more woodland than agricultural land.
Forests now stretch across 60,000 square miles of the Italian Peninsula, overly concentrated in mountain areas, but which nevertheless represent the gradual reversion of cultivated land to woodland again.
The milestone was officially hit in 2020, but only revealed this week thanks to a report published by National Union of Mountain Municipalities and Entities.
The report stresses the forest’s role providing work for free as a major net benefit from this reforestation.
In a single Italian municipality, called Marcetelli in the Rieti Province, where 94% of the land is covered in trees, the combined natural functions of the forests to store carbon, filter water and air, and to prevent erosion, would cost some $9.5 million if industrial solutions had to be sought.
Additionally, the increase in forested acreage is creating a somewhat ironic reversal of rural Italy’s emigration crisis.
For the last 2 decades, young people have increasingly left mountain and rural-plains areas for the big cities, resulting in the abandonment of marginal land or traditionally farmed/pastured lands, as well as an emptying of small towns—many of which have habitation records going back to medieval times.
Since 2021, however, 932 Italian municipalities showed a positive net migration of 10 per 1,000 inhabitants, with a significant share of these municipalities being located in heavily forested areas.
Discounting the coastlines, Italy’s geography is pretty straightforward. The Alps give way to the pre-Alpine hills which fall into the North Italian Plain, which give way to the Apennines until you reach the far south. These three mountain regions and the 3,598 municipalities nested therein account for three-quarters of Italy’s total forested area, even though they harbor just 13.5% of the country’s population.
It’s a statistic that captures their rurality, but also highlights the benefit beyond these trends in migration.
For locally endangered species like bears and wolves, more woods in mountain areas will go a long way toward supporting their populations.
There are ample opportunities to use these new forests for eco-tourism and sustainable forestry, while expansion of habitat for animals like wild boar and red deer offers increased bounty for Italy’s hunters who supply so many national restaurants with these favored game meats.
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The report nonetheless points out that many of these forests weren’t just appearing out of nowhere—they’re taking over agricultural land where farmers and ranchers used to ply there own trade.
All things being equal, however, the supply of farmland and pasture in Italy was clearly in a glut, otherwise the demand for agricultural products would have kept farming families there to satisfy it. In economic terms, the demand for living close to nature has grown, while the demand from living in farming communities has declined.
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Therefore, though the report colors the loss of farmland as an economic decline, it cannot be logically said to be so.
Those seeking to experience some of these rich woodland ecosystems on a trip to the Peninsula can find in the data some clear signals: of the 5 most-wooded municipalities in Italy, 2 are in the province of Perugia, and 2 are found in Udine.
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