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SOA, LIPU and the Environmentalist Forum have sent the European Commission a detailed dossier on the state of forest cutting in the Simbruini Mountains Natura 2000 site, denouncing a situation that the associations describe as one of substantial forestry deregulation within areas theoretically subject to the highest forms of environmental protection provided by the European “Habitats” and “Birds” directives. The report, titled “Forest Cutting in Protected Areas and Environmental Assessments. The case-study of the Simbruini Mountains,”<\/em> analyzes 32 forest use projects submitted in just three and a half years and authorized by the Abruzzo Region over a total area of 723 hectares of beech, oak, chestnut and horticultural forests of high naturalistic value, equivalent to about a thousand soccer fields. <\/p>\n The numbers that emerged from the survey are impressive and paint a picture of forest management that is largely incompatible with the conservation obligations imposed by the European Union. Overall, the projects involve the felling of more than 100,000 trees and the removal of about 776,200 quintals of timber, with individual operations affecting up to 68 consecutive hectares of forest. On average, each project involves about 22 hectares of forest. Even more serious is the fact that 71 percent of the interventions were drafted by the same two technicians, without the involvement of biologists, zoologists, forest ecologists or specialists in the protected species living in the area. <\/p>\n According to the report, 97 percent of the projects did not contain any field monitoring on protected species present in the sites affected by the cuts. Only one in 32 projects reported actual data collected on the ground through methodologies consistent with the National Guidelines for Environmental Impact Assessment approved in 2019. Even as few as 19 percent of the projects cited these Guidelines, but did not apply them in practice. Even more alarming is the figure for PATOM, the Action Plan for the Protection of the Marsican Bear: it too is cited in only 19 percent of cases, almost always formally and without operational consequences. <\/p>\n It is precisely here that one of the most worrisome aspects for the survival of the Marsican brown bear, one of the rarest bear subspecies in the world, with a population estimated today at about 60 individuals distributed mainly between Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise. In recent years the species has shown a slow but important expansion to peripheral areas and ecological corridors outside the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, including the Simbruini Mountains themselves. These territories represent strategic areas for the dispersal of young specimens, for the genetic link between different nuclei and for the search of new areas suitable for colonization. <\/p>\n The large mature beech forests of the Simbruini Mountains constitute not only refuge habitats, but also key feeding areas. In fact, the Marsican bear is closely dependent on forest productivity: beechnuts, acorns, wild fruits, saproxylic insects, and minor fauna related to dead wood represent essential components of its diet, especially in the autumn months preceding hibernation. Systematic removal of mature trees and dead wood drastically depletes understory biodiversity and alters the delicate ecological balances on which the species depends. <\/p>\n The report also points out how the absence of “islands of biodiversity” left entirely intact within logging plots prevents the conservation of microhabitats that are crucial to many forest species. Dead wood, often mistakenly considered “waste,” is instead a crucial ecological element: it hosts insects, fungi, small mammals and specialized birds, forming the basis of entire food chains. Its systematic removal impoverishes the forest and accelerates the transformation of mature forests into simplified, biologically poor environments. <\/p>\n Among the most threatened species is the extremely rare white-backed woodpecker, which is closely associated with old-growth forests full of dead and rotting trees. The Abruzzo Ornithological Station recently documented the presence of the species precisely in areas affected by the logging projects, despite the fact that the planners had claimed not to have detected any trace of it. This episode demonstrates the inadequacy of the environmental assessments carried out and the real risk of destruction of priority habitats without any real prior scientific knowledge. <\/p>\n Critical issues also concern compliance with the fauna’s breeding periods. The study shows that the period authorized for cutting overlaps with the nesting season of protected avifauna by more than 61 days on average. Only in two cases, and only after comments submitted by environmental associations, were the cutting schedules modified to avoid interference with the breeding of forest birds. <\/p>\n Also of concern is the weakness of the public control system. The Management Plan for the Simbruini Natura 2000 site, which cost more than 113,000 euros in European funds and was drafted back in 2014, has never been officially approved by the Abruzzo Region, just as the management plans for the other regional Natura 2000 sites, costing a total of about 4 million euros, are still blocked. In the meantime, the Municipality of Morino, identified as the area’s managing body, does not have an adequate technical structure: opinions on forest cuts are often expressed by the municipal surveyor alone. <\/p>\n Finally, the associations denounce the risk that the systematic recourse to industrial cutting will transform Apennine forests from complex and biodiverse ecosystems into mere productive areas. This is why they call for the immediate reinstatement of the conservation measures cancelled by the Abruzzo Region nine years ago and propose a series of urgent measures: the establishment of “biodiversity islands” entirely excluded from cutting, the absolute protection of at least 5 percent of the most valuable forest areas, an increase in the amount of dead wood left in the forest and the introduction of truly multidisciplinary environmental assessments. <\/p>\n The issue of the Simbruini Mountains is not just about local forest management. It is a decisive test of whether the central Apennines will still be able to host iconic species such as the Marsican brown bear or whether, under pressure from short-term economic interests, it will gradually lose those natural features that make it one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in Europe. <\/p>\n