PEFC Italy helps forests to recover after unprecedented storm
Last October, storm "Vaia" hit northern Italy with 150 km per hour winds, damaging forests in Trentino, Friuli, Veneto and Lombardy – the regions that provide two thirds of all Italian timber. The winds knocked down 20 million trees – over 8.5 million cubic metres of wood – equal to the amount of wood harvested in five to seven years of average silviculture. Regional governments estimated damages of more than a billion euros. No single event of extreme weather had ever caused such extensive destruction to Italian forests. But also the reaction it triggered appeared, in its own way, unprecedented. In the aftermath of the disaster, PEFC Italy launched a ‘fair supply chain’ to mitigate the environmental and socio-economic impact. They urged public forestry consortia, mountain communities and private firms to collect and purchase timber from the damaged forests at fair prices.