Biodiversity conservation and systemic silviculture: Concepts and applications

Abstract

Classic silviculture and management, with the aim of predicting regeneration rate and producing a constant yield of merchantable wood, have simplified many forests, often transforming natural forests into plantations or coppices. To conserve forest complexity and biodiversity, silviculture and forest management should change the reference paradigm and consider forest ecosystems as complex biological systems characterized by the inherent unpredictability of their trajectories in a continuously changing environment. The new Management Plan for the Vallombrosa Forest (Florence, Italy), a State Nature Reserve and a Natura 2000 Site, is based on this approach. The aim is the gradual evolution of the pure silver fir stands toward mixed stands with a complex structure. Most of the species considered by Natura 2000 depend on an increase of structural diversity at different space and time scales. The management approach proposed by the new plan is coherent with this aim and thus biodiversity conservation is not in conflict with forest management but is, instead, a direct consequence of the systemic approach.

Keywords:

• Complexity
• forest biodiversity
• Silver fir stands
• systemic silviculture

Acknowledgements

Financial support was furnished by the University of Florence – Progetto di ricerca scientifica d'Ateneo (ex-60%): ‘La rinaturalizzazione dei soprassuoli di abete bianco di origine artificiale in seguito all'applicazione del Piano di Gestione della Riserva Naturale di Vallombrosa (FI)’ (Coordinator Susanna Nocentini).