THE COPPICED WOOD

In the field of forestry the use of forest top-soil is defined as treatment and leads back to two distinct management typologies: Coppiced woods and Tree Pruning.
Coppice Wood - The management of almost all the Apennine woods which are not state owned is based nowadays on the practice of coppicing (cutting down to ground with standards).
This practice provides for the periodical removal of virtually the entire living woody mass in the high part of the wood and the complete uncovering of soils.
This generates a periodic ecological shock impact on the surface areas often of considerable extension and at regular intervals therefore frequently compromises the forest’s entire ecosystem with considerably negative effects for the landscape, fauna and hydrogeological aspects.
This is a practice which involves broad-leaved trees: if cut, new shoots will emerge and numerous stems grow again and as they grow they tend to recreate the original environment, through a slighter longer process.
When broad-leaved trees begin to re-form, cutting down to ground level is once again carried out, the soil is again stripped bare and the process starts all over again.
During the period between one coppice and another, the wood appears as a low entangled thicket and not a real wood.
Usually coppiced woods are “treated” in order to obtain wood for fires or an assortment of “minor value”.
All this impacts negatively upon the wood’s biodiversity, the hydrogeological order of the area and upon the conservation of soils and the climate.

Tree Pruning

In the second case however the tree is cut only when it has reached physiological maturity (the tree is old and its physiological rhythms start to slow down and therefore it can be cut).
In this case consequently there is no uncovering of soil or disturbance to the landscape and wildlife.
 
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