Resource description:
Italy’s wood-based sector operates within a structural paradox: despite forest cover expanding to over one-third of the national territory, the country remains reliant on timber imports, sourcing up to 80% of its wood and wood-based products abroad. Within this context, poplar (Populus spp.) plays a strategic role. Occupying less than 1% of the national forest surface, poplar plantations generate approximately 40% of domestic industrial broadleaf timber, acting
as the backbone of the high value "Made in Italy" plywood, packaging, and furniture supply chains. However, domestic cultivated area has contracted sharply from over 150,000 hectares in 1970 to approximately 53,000 hectares in 2024, resulting in annual roundwood imports exceeding 500,000 m3 (equivalent to 32-42 million Euro/year). Efforts to expand domestic cultivation toward the 100,000-hectare threshold required by industry face several barriers,
intersecting, and potentially conflicting, with the European Union Nature Restoration Law (Regulation EU 2024/1991) and the Italian National Restoration Plan. Concentrated primarily in the floodplains of the Po Valley (Northen Italy), intensive monoclonal poplar monocultures pose ecological concerns regarding riparian habitat degradation, low genetic resilience, and agrochemical runoff. Conversely, uncoordinated restrictions on poplar cultivation risk triggering
environmental and carbon leakage by shifting wood procurement to non-domestic sources, contributing to the risk of impact displacement, and finally affecting the development of a domestic forest-based bioeconomy.
This discussion paper examines the trade-offs between timber supply security and ecological restoration targets. It proposes an integrated spatial and policy framework based on: (1) functional spatial zoning that reserves active floodplains (golene) for riverine naturalization while relocating high-yield production to agricultural hinterlands (retro-golene); (2) the adoption of enhanced environmental sustainability clones resistant to biotic stressors; and (3) market
and policy levers, including forest certification, Common Agricultural Policy measures and voluntary Payments for Ecosystem Services. This framework indicates that modern poplar cultivation, when strategically aligned with spatial planning, can bridge industrial wood demands with European biodiversity and bioeconomy objectives.
The paper leaves some open questions to stakeholders, to stimulate discussion around this topic.
Author/Contact:
Masiero, M., Eusse-Villa, L.
University of Padova – Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry
(LEAF)
