Towards an assessment of tree mortality and net annual increments in Italian forests. Which sustainability for the Italian forestry?

Sustainable forest management requires that fellings do not exceed increments in the medium term, once natural mortality is taken into account. Here we propose an assessment of the relevance of tree mortality in stands not regularly thinned, as prevailing in Italian forests. The amount of small-scale mortality losses is often neglected and cannot be directly estimated from available inventory data. From literature sources and using two alternative approaches, mortality losses could amount to 31.1-36.2% of gross annual increments. Fellings would therefore remove 57.7-62.6% of net annual increments of Italian forests, well above what often reported and not far away from the EU15 average. This new estimate confirms the overall sustainability of Italian forestry on a national level, but highlights the need for careful planning in the future use of forest biomass, a strategic renewable resource.