ANALYSIS OF THINNING OPERATIONS IN CORSICAN PINE ARTIFICIAL HIGH FORESTS IN CALABRIA (ITALY)

Artificial reforestation of Corsican pine, carried out in Calabria in the 1950s and 1960s lacked the essential management phase following planting with the result that they are now in a precarious state of physical and biological balance. Therefore, given the present situation, it is necessary to intervene with a policy of rational management, based on re-naturalization, in order to best restore the structural and functional balance. Of the different tendings, thinning has a fundamental role in promoting such evolutive processes. The research, conducted in Aspromonte, examines a chain of forestry utilization engaged in selective thinning from below, carried out with varying intensities of intervention in order to assess their capacity and productivity. The results of the research show how, despite the low level of mechanization used, work productivity falls fully within the national average, and how these too often discontinued silvicultural operations instead prove to be fundamental in encouraging the growth in the efficiency of Calabrian forest systems.