Habitat trees: Key to protecting biodiversity

The Project and its Challenges

Habitat trees are old and tall trees with a number of characteristics that make them important resources for animals. They play an essential part in the ecosystems around them. These organisms can be anywhere between 100 to 800 years old, making them irreplaceable; a tree planted today, by contrast, will take at least a century to perform a similar role in its ecosystem. This quality is particularly important in towns and cities, where habitat fragmentation hinders both biodiversity preservation, as well as the proper functioning and resilience of ecosystems. Proper management of old trees is hampered by a lack of awareness, as well as a lack of scientific studies of their importance by the people who are responsible for them.

The Indro Montanelli Gardens, a historic park in the centre of Milan, are also host to the city’s natural history museum. In the 18th century, it became Milan’s first public park, and is still home to several trees from that time, including dawn redwoods, oaks and cedars.

Today, the park is in the care of the Milan City Council, whose approach to managing their trees is largely decorative in nature, in terms of plant health and security. They tend to fell old trees, with a view to reaching their target of 3 million trees planted in the Milan metropolitan area by 2030. A lot of investment is going into new planting, but no plans whatsoever have been made for maintaining the old trees.

At the University of Milano-Bicocca, they hope to change the way the city’s trees are currently managed and study these living organisms. The university’s pilot project will devise and test innovative methods of studying trees in urban areas, then spread the message of how important they are to the proper functioning and resilience of ecosystems.

The Maisons du Monde Foundation is supporting the University of Milano-Bicocca in its fight to preserve the old trees in the historic Indro Montanelli Gardens, which play such a central role in preserving biodiversity.

Thanks to its partnership with the Maisons du Monde Foundation, the university’s project aims to:

• Study the number and types of organisms living in very tall urban trees, carrying out one survey every season
• Experiment with an innovative sampling technique that involves climbing the trees
• Teach non-experts about the role played by old trees in biodiversity preservation, at two events aimed at the general public and two educational labs
• Promoting conservation arboriculture among tree surgeons and others working in the field, at a workshop