4 Table T4 – Characteristics of Forest and Other wooded land

4.1 FRA 2005 Categories and definitions

Category	Definition
Primary	Forest / Other wooded land of native species, where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed.
Modified natural	Forest / Other wooded land of naturally regenerated native species where there are clearly visible indications of human activities.
Semi-natural	Forest / Other wooded land of native species, established through planting, seeding or assisted natural regeneration.
Productive plantation	Forest / Other wooded land of introduced species, and in some cases native species, established through planting or seeding mainly for production of wood or non wood goods.
Protective plantation	Forest / Other wooded land of native or introduced species, established through planting or seeding mainly for provision of services.

4.2 National data

4.2.1 Data sources

References to sources of information	Quality (H/M/L)	Variable(s)	Year(s)	Additional comments
www.parks.it	H	Primary forests	2000
UNECE-FAO. 2000. Forest Resources of Europe, CIS, North America, Australia, Japan and New Zealand.	M	3Forest plantations	2000

*

4.2.2 Classification and definitions

Definitions were not available.

4.2.3 Original data

4Forest reserves	Area (ha)
Riserva Naturale Statale Sasso Fratino (1983)	764
Riserva Naturale Statale Foresta Umbra (1977)	399
Riserva Naturale Statale i giganti della Sila (1987)	5.44
Tot forests	1 168.44

Source: Parks Website

National classes	Area ha (1985)
Forest plantations	133 000

Source: UNECE-FAO 2000

4.3 Analysis and processing of national data

4.3.1 Calibration

4.3.2 Estimation and forecasting

Data for forest characteristics were only estimated for the year 2000, as further explained.

Plantations area was taken from the TBFRA 2000 Report while Primary forest area was estimated considering the extent of integral forest reserves. The data on Primary forest should be considered as strongly underestimated due to the difficulties in obtaining the real data. Core areas of Protected areas should also be considered as part of this category but, so far, no data is available.

It was assumed that all the Italian forests, which are neither Primary nor Plantations, could be included in the Modified natural forests category and, thus, to obtain an estimated extent of Modified natural forests, the total amount of forest indicated in T1 was reduced of the amount of Primary and Plantations forests.

4.4 Reclassification into FRA 2005 classes

Table: Reclassification (Percentage allocation) into FRA 2005 classes

National Classes	Percentage of a National Class into a FRA class
	Pri F	Mod F	Semi F	Prod Pl F	Prot Pl F	Pri OWL	Mod OWL	Semi OWL	Prot Pl OWL
Percentage	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Riserva Naturale Statale	100
Plantations5				100

4.5 Data for National reporting table T4

FRA 2005 Categories	Area (1000 hectares)
	Forest			Other wooded land
	1990	2000	2005	1990	2000	2005
Primary	n.a.	1	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
Modified natural	n.a.	8 573	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
Semi-natural	n.a.	-	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
Productive plantation	n.a.	133	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
Protective plantation	n.a.	-	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
TOTAL		8 707

4.6 Comments to National reporting table T4

³ No distinction between productive and protective forest plantation.
⁴ Assuming that most of the reserved area is covered by forests.
⁵ No further breakdown on the type of planted forest was available although it can be assumed that most of the plantations are productive plantations of poplars and pines. No real data exist on protective, although the use of introduced species for protective purposes has assumed a certain importance in the Italian landscape. Eucalyptus spp are used for wind breaks and Acacia saligna together with Pinus halepensis (endemic pine species of the centre of Italy) have been used for dune fixations in littoral areas.