How forest management, land abandonment, and protected areas affect wildfire occurrence

Forest management at the landscape scale is increasingly regarded as a key instrument for maintaining and improving the supply of multiple forest ecosystem services. Contemporary policy agendas, including the EU Forest and Biodiversity Strategies for 2030, together with management paradigms such as sustainable forest management, closer-to-nature forestry and rewilding, promote markedly different pathways. Some approaches rely on targeted silvicultural interventions, while others emphasise non-intervention and natural dynamics. Despite their growing relevance, the spatial prevalence of these contrasting strategies and their implications for ecosystem service provision at regional scales remain insufficiently explored. In this study, we assessed how alternative forest management trajectories affect ecosystem services across the entire forested landscape of the Piedmont region (Italy). Drawing on information from regional forest management plans, we categorised planned management into two broad classes: active management, encompassing silvicultural interventions of varying intensity, and passive management, characterised by the absence of direct interventions. We quantified the spatial extent of each management type and analysed their relationships with three key ecosystem services—carbon storage, fire hazard reduction and tree-species diversity—using principal component analysis and generalised linear models. Additionally, we investigated the association between management strategies and Protected Areas, and whether protection status modulates ecosystem service outcomes. Our results indicate that approximately 60% of Piedmont’s forests are designated for active management, although actual implementation is increasingly constrained by widespread forest abandonment. Active management was consistently associated with higher levels of carbon stocks, reduced fire hazard and greater tree-species diversity. Protected Areas were more frequently linked to passive management, yet their contribution to enhancing ecosystem services appeared limited. Based on these findings, we highlight the importance of: (i) reactivating forest management in abandoned areas, (ii) prioritising active management strategies to strengthen ecosystem service delivery, and (iii) using currently unprotected, passively managed forests as strategic candidates for expanding the Protected Area network, in line with EU2030 policy objectives.