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11
what is provided for by local planning instruments). For choosing the best area, among those available,
it is necessary to consider the following aspects:
•
the use of the original soil. In urban and periurban areas, sites potentially available for forestry
are mainly:
o
natural and semi-natural areas, such as natural areas along water courses, untamed
areas and agricultural areas. Specifically in Rome, both in urban and periurban
territory there are extend agricultural areas
15, which offer the advantage to need not
great preparatory interventions of the soil. Remarkable forestry examples, moreover,
are still present in the Western part of the city and in the coastal territory;
o
if an agricultural land is chosen, it is appropriate to avoid interventions that could
negatively interfere with productive units. Furthermore, in these areas tree-lined
rows/green belts are to be considered, in addition to possible forestry planting to
realize limited to low productivity agricultural units or areas characterized by
hydrogeological problems, which recommend a land cover change. Tree-lined rows/
green belts can contribute to ecological connectivity, windbreak, improvement the
landscape, etc. Other sites potentially available are natural areas inside protected
areas
16. In this case, forestry interventions, especially if of small dimensions, have to
be essentially for conservation and protection purposes;
o
degraded areas to recove
r 17(such as industrial disused areas
18, areas exposed to
intense environmental pressures). In this case, however, it is indispensable to assess in
advance the necessity to restore the soil (possibly using as well phytoremediation). In
degraded areas, creation of new wooded areas not only improves the environment, but
also can have socio-cultural and landscape benefits. In fact new forested areas can be
enriched with usable elements, such as benches, educational panels, outdoor sport
routes, etc. In management activities, it has to be considered also degraded areas
spontaneously covered by vegetal formation of exotic naturalized species, such as
Ailanthus altissima
,
Acer negundo
and
Robinia pseudoacacia
. In fact, these are
pioneer species, able to create, on infrastructural embankments and marginal areas,
wood-like formations, which can quickly sequester CO
2
. Moreover,
Robinia
pseudoacacia,
being a leguminous, is able to enrich degraded soils with nitrogen
compounds. Also these formations can be an opportunity of pollution mitigation and
environment requalification, if they are well managed and if the exotic species are not
invasive;
15
Rome, with its 63.000 total hectares of cultivated land, distributed in farms and natural reserves, is defined as the biggest agricultural
Municipality of Europe.
16
In Rome some forestry examples aimed to carbon sequestration have been realized yet inside protected areas (figure 3): for example the
pilot action of the LIFE project “
Roma per Kyoto
”, for which a forestry installation has been realized inside the Natural Reserve Valle dei
Casali; other examples are located inside the Natural Reserve Valle dell’Aniene.
17
In case the forestation intervention aims to mitigate climate change, it is opportune that the surface is not less than 1 hectare (functional
criterion for the acquisition of carbon credits on the basis of Marrakech agreements).
18
For example Parco Dora in Turin, realized in a disused industrial area; Parco di Rubano in Padoa, realized around an old sand pit in an area
naturalized trough forestry interventions and creation of a wetland; some woods in the Parco Nord Milano where the existing 90 ha of new
plantations has been realized in part on disused industrial land.