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Paper short abstract

This paper presents findings from a PhD project examining human–forest relationships in inland areas of Italy, focusing on how different migratory trajectories reshape ecological practices, local knowledge, and regimes of belonging.

Paper long abstract

In inland areas of Italy forest landscapes and populations have co-evolved for centuries through management practices intertwined with the social and economic structure of the communities that used the forest. Although the depopulation processes of the last century drastically interrupted this relationship, in recent decades new migratory flows have repopulated these territories and returned to manage their resources. Forestry is experiencing renewed interest both for economic and energy needs and thanks to new ecological sensibilities. The case study concerns a global countryside (Woods 2011) in the Tuscan hinterland. These villages historically developed around forest-based economic activities and currently exhibit a stratified composition resulting from successive migratory flows. In fact, this area has attracted both economic migrants, who have found work as woodcutters, and “amenity migrants”, who, driven by a “rural nostalgia” (Meloni 2023), interact with the forest in a more conservative way. In this sense, the forest itself becomes a polarised space of potential conflict, encounters and hierarchies where it is difficult to reconcile multiple senses of belonging and individual interests within shared management practices. The main objective of this research is to understand how perceptions and usage practices regarding the forest diverge between different groups in a context of capitalist economy and increasing heritagization processes (Smith 2006). Drawing on political ecology (Moore 2016), the paper argues that these relationships between humans and forests have fundamental implications not only for ecological balances, but also for issues of social and environmental justice within rural communities undergoing demographic and socio-economic transformation.