1 Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Via Irnerio 42, IT-40126 Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Forestry plays the key role in environmental sustainability and economic wealth of Italy. Forest massifs maintain the ecological balance and climate setting of the country. At the same time, forests are essential sources of products for industry. The research objective is to evaluate the balance between the environmental protection and economic development of forestry. The research questions are: 1) how does forestry sector developing and what are the long-term trends showing its economic profitability? 2) How does the forest area change over decades? To answer these questions, the objective is to evaluate the data on environmental and economic parameters. The methodology included the FAOSTAT dataset on 2001-2023, processed by statistical analysis in R. The increase in forest area is detected from 12,748 to 13,937 T ha. Decline in pulp-and-paper sector is due to growing digitalization and e-commerce: newsprint production decreased from 293 T to 52 T tons, which proves transfer of printing industry towards e-format. Shifting market is in wrapping and packaging paper (360 T to 3.702 T tons). The results show positive trends in reforestation, high revenues from timber production which need further development and investments in forestry.