The value of landscape in forest management

Abstract

The scientific and aesthetic perspectives of landscape and forest management are analysed. Landscape is usually associated with subjective judgement of an open and changing reality. In the ecological perception, instead, landscape is seen as a system and therefore judgement tends to be objective, historical, technical, scientific. The problems related to landscape touch the roots of perception of the human contact with the land. The cultural value of the landscape is the expression of local traditions and knowledge in the relationship between humankind and the forest. In practice, forest landscape enhancement must follow three autonomous but complementary guidelines. The first concerns silviculture and forest management with the object of maintaining or increasing landscape biodiversity. The second concerns landscape evolution and is based on the renaturalisation of simplified forest systems. The third concerns reafforestation and forest plantations with the aim of conserving genetic diversity.