ENHANCING the NATURAL HERITAGE of MONTE PISANO, through the mechanism of Payment for Ecosystem Services
In terms of landscape, ecosystem biodiversity, historical, architectural and cultural value, Monte Pisano certainly represents an extraordinary heritage that requires equally extraordinary efforts to preserve it from progressive degradation and abandonment, and to protect and enhance it.
The Monte territory extends over approximately 16,500 hectares (limit assumed by convention: foothills road ring); of these, about 11,700 (1) are covered by forests and 2,350 hectares by olive groves; altogether, therefore, more than 85% of the surface is covered by natural vegetation.
Below is the detailed land use and cover (UCS Geoscopio Tuscany Region)
However, it’s necessary to know that the value of the forest stand of Monte Pisano is very limited when it’s not even zero, as in most cases, which makes active forest management interventions uneconomical; similarly, the management of mountain olive cultivation (not surprisingly often called “heroic”) is characterized by strong elements of uneconomical nature.
This uneconomical factor explains the understandable progressive process of abandoning active management of the plant heritage that has been ongoing for years (2); to this are added the criticalities typically widespread in the country’s internal agroforestry areas.
Among these, our area is characterized by:
WHAT CAN BE DONE
Without economic sustainability, it’s difficult to think of territory management policies that are also sustainable from an environmental and social point of view.
The protection of the agroforestry complex of the territory, and therefore the guarantee of continuity of its community’s presence, can no longer ignore the quantification of its natural value, that is, the value that the forests and terraced olive cultivation provide to the community simply by existing, in terms of benefits:
It’s therefore essential to activate mechanisms for payment of ecosystem services generated by local agroforestry ecosystems in order to compensate for that additional natural value that their management ensures.
In a managed forest, a tree’s canopy can stop up to 200 liters of water; the ensemble of forest canopies can prevent a sudden summer storm, even an exceptional one, from turning into a flow of water and mud (4).
The olive production cycle ensures the absorption of 10.65 kg of CO2 for every kilogram of olive oil produced (5).
These examples of additional values ensured over time through active management of a forest or olive grove are not paid for by the market price of timber nor by the market price of oil.
More generally, natural resources such as forests, agricultural systems and wetlands, in addition to products, provide services such as water purification, climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation (6).
Only the “monetization” of these services through the activation of the PES mechanism (Payment Ecosystem Services) can make forest management activity as well as terraced olive cultivation management economically sustainable, activating a virtuous cycle of environmental and social sustainability.
Public mechanisms (PSR (7) for example) to support the provision of ecosystem services can therefore be associated with private partnerships. PES are increasingly adopted to counter the loss and degradation of environmental services worldwide! (6)
It goes without saying that the implementation of the mechanism that recognizes the natural value of Monte’s plant heritage must be accompanied by extensive work in communication and aggregation of people and therefore properties, in stimulating, agile and streamlined forms; the management of an olive grove and even more so of a forest generates economies of scale only if approached with a wide-area logic and medium to long-term perspectives.
A first attempt at collective planning of our forest heritage was successfully completed by the Forest Community of Monte Pisano, which brought together 54 forest and olive grove owners (private and public) for a total area of just over 1,100 hectares and, thanks to funding from the Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry Policies (now MASAF), drafted a collective plan for active and responsible forest management.
Not only that, but through a dedicated web-gis platform https://montepisano.sis-te.com/, it’s working to activate the PES mechanism to meet private entities (especially local businesses) attentive to environmental issues, available and interested in financing the implementation of what’s planned.
In exchange, the financing entity can enhance its intervention in terms of corporate image and marketing.
(1) PIT Territorial Planning Guidelines – Tuscany Region
(2) In 1978 the surface cultivated with olive groves on Monte Pisano covered about 2,700 hectares; research Prof. M.Rovai DiSAAA – UNIPI; in less than 50 years about 13% of cultivated surface would have been lost.
(3) A maple (Acer plantanoides) in its first 20 years of life absorbs on average 3.8 tons of CO2, 190 kg/year;
A turkey oak (Quercus cerris) in its first 20 years of life absorbs on average 3.1 tons of CO2, 155 kg/year.
STEB Srl Safety Environment Energy Acoustics Fire Prevention Training – June 2017 – CNR Biometeorology Bologna.
(4) G. Vacchiano, Forest Resilience – 2019
(5) International Olive Council – April 2018: https://www.internationaloliveoil.org/1075-co2-ndash-coi-la-produzione-mondiale-di-olio-assorbirebbe-le-emissioni-di-co2-di-una-citta-come-hong/?lang=it
(7) PSR: Rural Development Plan; the calls issued by Tuscany Region through PSR funds are certainly useful, but have the limitation of not representing a structural tool for organic support to E.S. production.
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