Land panning for forest management, the Arci Grighine (Sardinia) studycase

Since forest management interacts deeply with the land system, in a sustainability perspective, it requires a proper planning framework. Different needs play a role, like 'internal planning', seeking optimal company results, or the ‘required planning', necessary to take account of society-driven requests and limitations on forestry activities. Public financial support is generally necessary and can be very well justified, considering the social interests involved. The work emphasizes that, in implementation of the regional plan approved in 2007 (PFAR), public investments on land planning at the district level (PFTD) deserve the highest priority. PFAR has envisaged a PFTD for each of the 25 districts that make up the region. The plan for the Arci Grighine District (PFTD-AG) is the first that the Region has undertaken. A proposal for a fully developed plan has recently been delivered, the materials of this work are derived from the that plan. The paper presents the experimental systemic approach to the construction of coherent, complex and significative district level forest management strategies, created in the course of the PFTD-AG development. The complexity of the territorial system is functionally represented by the diversity of categories of patches, each patch being distinct from adjacent by a different combination of activity levels. Meaningful disjoint territorial subsystems have been identified organising, in an appropriate hierarchical structure, the factors discriminating among activity options. Such sub-systems are discontinuous territorial entities inherently heterogeneous, that share one or few characteristics related to forest management. The district planning level, allowing a broad and deep analysis of the environmental and socio-cultural structure of the land system provides, through the sub-systems, a dynamic approach to decision making, (i) promoting the use of production potential, (ii) allowing the responsible consideration of the necessary limitation of certain activities and (iii) ensuring that proper care is taken of the existing threats.