Restoration of beech and silver fir forests in the Toscan Marches Appennines (LIFE RESILFOR - REstoring SILver-fir FORest)

In the Italian Apennines (Mediterranean area), climate change is causing particularly extreme, sudden and intense phenomena, suggesting a likely alteration in precipitation rates in the future, with atmospheric humidity reductions and a decrease in annual and summer rainfall. This could cause selective pressure – leading to genetic erosion in a very short timeframe - on the most sensitive ecosystems and species located at high altitudes, such as beech and silver fir forests, which are often isolated and have limited critical mass. These species have reproduction mechanisms and dynamics of genetic structure that will not enable them to react promptly to this fast phenomenon, leading to a high risk of loosing or compromising the existence of key elements of forest diversity in these areas. The general objective of the project is to safeguard mountain habitats with beech-silver fir Apennine forest and beech-yew forest, through restoration of the forest ecosystems by low impact techniques, focusing on sites where temperature increases and rainfall reduction problems are not foreseen in the short run.