The last Italian forests (and the WWF project to protect them)

The March 21 is theInternational Forest Day, the International Day dedicated to forests, one of humanity’s most precious and vital and most mistreated assets. In Italy alone, we lose 16 hectares of land every day in honor of concrete. Do we really need it? For this day @wwfitalia launch the project ReNature Italy, to protect our natural capital. An ambitious project: reach by 2030 30% of land and sea surface effectively protected, with 10% of territory fully protected, allocate at least 10% of agricultural land to nature, create natural corridors to connect existing protected areas, ensure the protection of key species, such as wolves and bears.

This is the only way to protect the biodiversity of our country, the trees, the plants, the animals that live there, not least ourselves. The loss of forests as well as a cultural loss means sacrificing oxygen and pure water, putting the places where we live at risk of floods and natural disasters, because only in the balance and in the coexistence of man and nature a safe and happy future can be identified.

In Italy there are very few primary forests left, i.e. forests of native species that regenerate naturally, where there are no human activities and ecological processes are not disturbed, but we have ancient forests of incredible beauty, such as the 10 sites that have become part of the transnational Unesco site dedicated to ancient primordial beech woods. In Italy we also have three “patriarchs of Europe”, that is the oldest trees of their species on our continent: a 623-year-old beech in the Pollino National Park, an approximately 100-year-old oak in the Aspromonte Park and then there is our symbol: it is called Italus, the loricato pine that lives in the Pollino National Park born with Charlemagne, and which reaches the age of 1,232 years.