The communications are “urgent”, with immediate effect. The provisions are peremptory and executive: the “dark evil” of the Sardinian forests has not stopped, quite the opposite. The advance of the forest “drying out” is, day after day, a drama without respite, from north to south of the Island. In the end, the first measures have arrived, unequivocal, although still partial: phytosanitary curfew in all forest nurseries of the Island and the immediate blocking of the extraction of cork throughout the regional territory.
Immediate bans
A real ban that affects one of the most delicate economic chains of the forestry sector, the cork sector. A decision, that of the Region, indispensable and unpostponable, in some ways even belated, which serves to put tens of thousands of hectares of oaks in "protection" mode. This decision, in itself very significant, which involves the entire regional territory, is accompanied by an even more eloquent one on what is happening on the Island of the Woods: all forest nurseries are under a peremptory order under a strict "lockdowm" regime, a sort of "forest curfew" that is imposed in all those forest habitats destined to repopulate the arboreal system of Sardinia.
Forestry Lockdown
The measures have multiple signatures, from the management level to the institutional one, from the general directorates of Forestas to the Regional Councillor for the Environment. Initially the measure concerned the territorial services of Cagliari and Ogliastra, only later, the block on the "cutting" of cork was extended from October 10th to the entire regional territory. The motivations leave no room for doubt: " conducted the reconnaissance on the ground and by means of multispectral satellite remote sensing, of the conditions that determine deficit stress in the water balance in the jurisdictions of competence ".
Stress & Dessication
Again: « the cork oaks have undergone the recent and documented serious stress consisting of a severely deficient water balance in the last two years, also associated with locally very intense leaf drying phenomena ». An ongoing leaf drying that is massive and very serious, with significant repercussions also on the imminent hydrogeological risk for many areas of the Island. The prohibition measures are explicit on the of the decision: « ». The measure, although massive in its determination and sectoral and territorial breadth, addresses the case only on the economic-productive side, that of cork, but does not resolve the "phytosanitary" disaster that has been affecting the forests and Mediterranean scrub of the Island for some time, from holm oaks to mastic trees, on an area that has far exceeded one hundred thousand hectares.
