Modelli organizzativi innovativi nel settore forestale Uno studio sulle aree montane italiane

The forest sector is hit by the global environmental and political crisis and its consequences on the market, characterised by unstable prices and an increase in energy costs that force forest management organisations to seek new forms of competitive advantage and business opportunities, while challenging them to meet the societal demand for environmental services. From another (convergent) perspective, forest management can be vital for socioeconomic development, especially in regions where the use of forest resources represents a relevant opportunity for local communities, as for Italian mountain areas, where more than .65% of the Italian forests can be found. Among the main issues experienced in these areas, land abandonment is a crucial driver (and at the same time a consequence) for the overall socioeconomic depletion, and because of this phenomenon, further critical factors enhance the magnitude of the impacts of climate change. Land ownership fragmentation is an important issue that hinders forest management in many countries especially in southern Europe, and can be indicated within the main reasons that lead to give up management and, in the end, to land abandonment. Management of small parcels is not profitable, many smallholders give it up, and the abandonment of forests accelerates the loss of land value and fosters a vicious cycle that definitively depletes forest-related communities. Various types of innovation have been supported through, e.g., the EU RDP and CAP funds, to aggregate forest properties or to support forest-related supply chains, in order to encourage forest management, including organisational, institutional, and social innovations. The research is focused on organisational models in the Italian forest sector, looking for innovative solutions addressing those critical management issues, where forest owners/managers are associated among them and/or with other actors. The research is designed to analyse such associative organisational models, to understand whether they can be a viable solution and how they can be implemented, to encourage sustainable forest management in marginalised rural areas. The analysis is focused on how they were inspired and established; what challenges and threats they face and what the successful factors are; what they need to consolidate and scale up in different contexts. Basing on reviews of the literature and of policy documents, then on a survey involving 31 real-world cases, the results show that there are quite a number of solutions in Italy, some displaying appreciable results, while others show critical issues and an uneven and not always coordinated framework of regulatory cases and reference models has been developed. Such models often derive from institutional innovation initiatives; however, also social innovation processes occur involving associative organisational models, eventually overlapping or converging after an initial phase more characterised by one type, and they must be carefully tailored according to actors, their objectives, and the whole socioeconomic context. Moreover, in general terms, integration of different models and cooperation is needed to overcome challenges and limits, and more accurate monitoring of the underlying problems and of the implementation of these initiatives.