Page 137 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

sions in Italy according to Kyoto 2. In reality, we can say this is the step before
the implementation of Paris Agreement that Europe has basically approved. As
a result all European Countries are required to respect it.

The Agreement provides for the Italian forests to reach a value of absor-
ption of 22 million tonnes of CO2 per year. This time we are not just required
to do a simple count and quantify what we have around us: we have to reach
that target and if we fail we may remain in debt or even have to pay a sanction.

All this forces us to think that just now we need a forestry policy that on
a national level would coordinate a system to safeguard our forests. Through
this system our forests will be put in the conditions to reach such targets. Sadly
this is not what I currently happening.

Fortunately there is a certain margin of flexibility! Nevertheless we cannot
be sure that we will reach our 2020 target. As a result we must put all this as an
imperative. We need to start to think of what we are going to do with our high
forests, coppice. We need to do some activities also linked to crops, manage-
ment and control.

A large quantity of forestry uses, as detected through satellite technolo-
gies, confirms that many forest cuttings, also in Italy, are made against the law.
This is not a problem just for African or developing Countries. We have often
cuttings which manage to avoid our statistics, our surveys. In view of this, we
have to handle this issue with a more intense monitoring activity on the terri-
tory because if we fail to control also the use we run the risk of not reaching
that target which is so important for the climate policies.

The same considerations should be made for forest fires. Also these are a
difficult variable to be kept under control because, on the one hand, there is the
involvement of climate aspects that somehow facilitate the season with more
fire risks and, on the other hand, there is the human factor which is fundamen-
tal, or perhaps even the first factor of forest fires.

Here the fluctuation on the CO2 emissions linked to fire is variable but
they are strictly related to the human factor. If we want to reach those objecti-
ves, which are objectives of a country compared to the world, in light of what
we are asked according to the climate agreements, the safeguard of the forest
has to take into account the forest fires, above all those caused by humans.

135