L’expérience italienne en matière de critères et indicateurs de gestion forestière durable

THE ITALIAN EXPERIENCE WITH CRITERIA AND INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT (Abstract) In recent years, much effort has been devoted to defining the attractive goal of sustainable forest management by means of principles, criteria and indicators in the attempt to overcome the difficulties in putting it into practise. Results pertaining to principles and generic features are broadly similar on the international scale and provide a good starting point for establishing practical standards. However, the similarity appears to apply only to the conceptual level since any attempt to define forest management problems in concrete terms tailored to the particular attributes always leads to defining and developing new, specific criteria and indicators. The purpose of this article is to describe the path followed in Italy to define sustainable management. An outline of the structural attributes of Italian forests is provided, followed by a description of the procedures that led to the definition of criteria and indicators. The main initiatives implemented are compared so as to identify critical aspects and results that are helpful in defining the criteria and indicators for forests and a number of methodological conclusions are then drawn.