‘Back to the Future’—Oak wood-pasture for wildfire prevention in the Mediterranean

By

Bergmeier, Erwin
Capelo, Jorge
Di Pietro, Romeo
Guarino, Riccardo
Kavgacı, Ali
Loidi, Javier
Tsiripidis, Ioannis
Xystrakis, Fotios

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2021-12-31

Original Publication

Plant sociology

Volume

58

Series / Issue

Issue: 2

Pages

41--48

Subjects

biomass reduction , Fire prevention , forest fire , Forest management , Mediterranean basin , Oak , pine forest , wood pasture

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Pavia Società italiana di scienza della vegetazione 2012-2019

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/pls2021582/04

 

Abstract

In the summer of 2021, enormous wildfires in the Mediterranean eliminated huge areas of mainly coniferous forest, destroyed adjacent settlements and claimed the lives of many people. The fires indicate effects of climate change and expose consequences of rural demographic changes, deficits in regional and touristic development planning and shortcomings in forest policy. This forum article highlights the dimensions of the problem, calls for a paradigm shift and shows solutions. Land abandonment, woody plant encroachment and non-reflective afforestation are leading to increasing amounts of combustible biomass. To prevent disastrous fires in future, fundamental changes in tree species composition, forest structure and management are essential. Plantations of reseeding pines are to be substituted by spacious or periodically open woodlands of long-lived trees with resprouting capacity such as Mediterranean oaks. Biomass-reducing practices including wood-pasture have to be revived in rural and peri-urban areas. Exemplary fire-resistant multifunctional oak woodlands occur throughout the Mediterranean. Urgent and medium-term measures in the burnt areas include promoting natural ecosystem regeneration, developing regionalized seed banks and nurseries to support native genetic resources, fostering vegetation mosaics of groves and multiple-use open and coppice woodland maintained by traditional practices, and in general forest management aiming at fuel biomass reduction and a policy counteracting land abandonment.