La tutela della biodiversità e il diritto forestale

The essay deals with the current system of forest law in the multilevel panorama of legal sources, analysing the relationship between the protection of biodiversity and forests. Among the fundamental notions, which constitute the very essence of forest law, there is the legal notion of forest. This definition is closely characterized by the needs of biodiversity, above all where it implies the application of the criteria of mul- tifunctionality and sustainable forest management. The article focuses on the current regulatory framework in the light of the fundamental notions of multifunctionality of the forest and management sustainable forestry and finally considers what is per- haps the most striking example of the protection of biodiversity applied to the forest environment, i.e. the case of old-growth forests and the attention that this category has recently aroused in national legislation and ministerial regulations, precisely for the strong environmental footprint and for the need to safeguard the biodiversity ex- pressed in it.