Basilicata, land of forests and forest studies

Abstract

Basilicata, a land of forests and home to a Forest Sciences university program. We talk about the launch, in the eighties, of the higher education program in Forest Sciences at the University of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. Basilicata is a land of beautiful forests that have undergone great manipulation over time. We shortly describe their history in the last two centuries, and talk about some scholars who studied these forests in the postwar period until the early eighties. Afterwards, we recall the early years of Forest Sciences courses at the University of Basilicata. In a separate box, we deal with the possibility to restore the mixed silver fir/beech forest in the mountains of Basilicata: we address the ways in which silver fir natural regeneration can be promoted, where this species is still present; and the reasons and know-how for reintroducing it, where silver fir is no longer present.

Keywords

• university
• potenza
• deforestation
• silver fir
• mixed forests
• restoration