The Directorate General of Forests of the Mipaaf presented, last December 5th at the Botanical Garden of Rome, the updating of the Guidelines for the care and safeguarding of monumental trees. During the work it emerged that, pursuant to Article 7, paragraph 3, of the Law of 14 January 2013, n. 10, concerning "Rules for the development of urban green spaces", and the related implementation decree of October 23, 2014, the monumentality of 3,326 trees or homogeneous tree systems distributed throughout the country has been recognized to date.
The Guidelines are mainly addressed to the owners of large trees but also to professionals, companies and technical officials of the Municipalities that deal with their management and care.
This is not a technical-scientific manual but a document that aims to provide a spectrum of good practices to refer to for those who find themselves managing a monumental tree heritage. The document responds to the need to consolidate a common technical language and to define the minimum quality parameters that should underlie any arboricultural intervention aimed at monumental trees.
Although this is currently a guideline, the document also wants to be useful for preliminary investigations in the administrative procedures referred to in paragraph 4 of Article 7 of Law no. 10/2013 (authorization to slaughter and interventions that are a modification of the epigeal and hypogean part or of the zone of respect).
After a one-year experimentation phase, the Guidelines have been updated, with the involvement of different stakeholders.
Nada Forbici, president of Assofloro, Andrea Trentini, president of the Arboriculturists Association and Carmelo Fruscione, president of the Italian Arboriculture Society express satisfaction for the update of the Guidelines.
The three associations had been involved to provide their contribution to updating the document. Almost all the observations and additions proposed have been implemented and included in the update of the Guidelines.
"An important result, with direct repercussions in particular for the members of SIA and AA who daily, in their professional activity, are called to intervene on monumental trees".

The update of the Guidelines for the care and safeguarding of Monumental Trees - Version updated to December 2019 is public at this link:
https://www.politicheagricole.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/13732