An international IUFRO conference to explore the multiple roles of forests in present-day society, define the role of research and technologies in understanding their dynamics, assess up-to-date technical approaches to enhance their contribution to a safer World.

The conference, initially conceived by the three IUFRO Groups focused on Fagus, Quercus and Castanea, has soon enlarged its scope by embracing the contribution from other Groups working on old-growth forests and forest reserves, agroforestry, hydrological processes in forests, and the IUFRO Task Force on the Forest-Water-Livelihood Nexus.

Given the location chosen for the conference, placed in the center of the Apennines – the Mediterranean Mountains stretching N-S along the Italian Peninsula – we selected as the main focus of the conference the link between forests, mountains and water. This well represents the complex interplay between ecosystems, natural resource provision, climate change impacts and landscape protection.