ALESSANDRO RAGAZZI (***) SILVICULTURE: FOREST PROTECTION

The multiple services provided by forests (conservation of: biodiversity, soil and water resources, mitigation of climate change, cleaning of air and water, timber production, landscape and recreation) are strongly dependent on forest health. In this paper we synthesize the main outcomes of the session on ‘Silviculture, Forest Protection ’ held within the III Italian National Congress of Silviculture, Taormina, 16-19 October 2008. Key words: insects; fungi; pollution; climate change. The multiple services provided by forests (conservation of: biodiversity, soil and water resources, mitigation of climate change, cleaning of air and water, timber production, landscape and recreation) are strongly dependent on forest health. In this paper we synthesize the main outcomes of the session on ‘Silviculture, Forest Protection ’ held within the III Italian National Congress of Silviculture, Taormina, 16-19 October 2008. An extended version of the discussion held at the congress is given in BATTISTI et al., 2009. 1. PLANT PATHOLOGY The phytosanitary situation of the Italian forests, often tied up to irrational silvicultural practices, is conditioned to be threaten by pathogens of new introduction, by the recrudescence of endemic infective entities and by the increase of the stress induced from changes of the environmental conditions. A typical example is provided by Discosporium, a poplar pathogen, known to be harmful in the south of the country, but no