Prospettive di evoluzione nel settore delle utilizzazioni forestali e dell'approvvigionamento del legname

The Authors, starting from the analysis carried out in the second Congress of Silviculture (1998), illustrate the changes occurred in the working systems, due to causes that are independent among them, but that strongly affect the forest-wood supply chain; Such causes are: - the price of wood products has not grown in the same way as the cost of the work necessary to produce them; - the price of energy derived from fossil sources has in- creased dramatically; - an increasing request of forests multi-functionality, not supported by the present infrastructure, poor both in quantity and quality. After describing the different working systems used in Italy, the Authors analyze the situation concerning silvi- cultural conditions, forest machines, equipment, and in- frastructure, separately for the Central-Northern and Cen- tral-Southern Italy and and according to the applied forms of forest management. The Authors list the necessary changes in forest technologies and working systems that should be introduced in order to foster a mechanization able to promote better work conditions and a sustainable utilization of the Italian forests: 1. the improvement of labour quality and professional- ism, the increased use of technologically advanced ma- chines and equipment, both capable of improving such aspects as work hygiene, work safety and labour recruit- ment (limiting irregular labour), with a training per- formed by adequate specialized personnel; 2. adequate primary and secondary roads and trails, properly planned with respect to density, routeing and other physical characteristics (width, slope, presence of suitable landings); 3. silvicultural techniques allowing the economic use of appropriate equipment; 4. promoting the associations of forest owners and com- panies, to ensure an economic use of expensive equip- ment, with harvesting surfaces that can minimize the or- ganizational delays and related fixed costs, while maxi- mizing productivity. This work provides guidelines for the effective mecha- nization of forest harvesting and wood biomass collec- tion, directing the choice to the most suitable machines for different operating conditions, in order to reduce the costs and the impacts of forest harvesting, thus maximiz- ing the economical and environmental sustainability of forest management in Italy.