Fabio Clauser, the centenarian who whispers to the trees. Bringing a love of forests to institutions.

The October 23 2020 Fabio Clauser he turned one hundred and one years old, a long journey between forests and woods. In Italy he is a symbol, the dean of forestry research, father of the Sasso Fratino nature reserve, declared a World Heritage Site in 2017. The first Italian nature reserve, established thanks to his efforts in 1959, is of strategic importance because it is a rare example of a virtually intact ecosystem in Europe. Indeed, it was while walking among the ancient beech trees that Clauser was struck by the wild beauty of the views of this ancient forest, untouched over the centuries, and developed the "crazy idea" of creating a protected area, at a time when environmental issues were not always on the agenda.

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FABIO CAUSER

Born in 1919 in Malosco, in the province of Trento, he developed a passion for trees and forests as a boy, walking in the green pastures with his peers who were dedicated to raising cows. The son of a lawyer, after developing a certain "feeling for the woods," he enrolled in the Academy of Forestry Militia Officers, graduating in Forestry Sciences. This was just the beginning of a completely linear and dedicated path: he received his first assignment in Novara and after the armistice was appointed director of the Stelvio National Park. He did not join the Italian Social Republic, and for this reason he was expelled from the ranks, only being readmitted after the war. Just as after the war, his career took the turn for which we still know him today: that of the "disobedient" who, thanks to his intuition, gifted us with beauty and nature.Director of the Stelvio Park, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and administrator of the Casentino Forests from 1955 to 1973: it was precisely in the 1950s that he found himself having to choose whether to strictly implement the forest management plan that called for the felling of the forests on the slopes of Sasso Fratino, risking the loss of beech trees as old as 4 or 5 centuries, contemporary with Christopher Columbus and Leonardo da Vinci, or not.

THE CENTENARY GUARDIAN OF THE FORESTS

Clauser's great refusal gave birth to the integral reserve, dissuading the blind Roman administrators from cutting down the trees. of this portion of ancient forest. The crazy idea became a reality, receiving the Council of Europe Diploma in 1985 and encompassing an area of ​​113 hectares, compared to 764 today. 

Fabio Clauser's ideas have always been innovative and far-sighted: since the 1950s he had chosen to study and apply the European model of integral reserve, at a time where environmental awareness was not particularly widespread. His tenacity and conviction, combined with a generous dose of passion, however, allowed him, in the following decades, to successfully secure ad hoc ministerial decrees, through which the treasures of Sasso Fratino, duly conserved and protected, acquired a international aesthetic and landscape interest capable of attracting forestry scientists, botanists and wildlife experts from all over the world, willing to travel thousands of kilometers to visit the ancient beech trees.

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THE MAN WHO WHISPERS TO THE TREES

Fabio Clauser entered the Casentino Forests as a young officer and has never left, except for brief periods, to the point of making it his buen retiro. Today, he lives with his dogs and his wife, the love of his life. in Montalbino, in Pratovecchio, a few minutes from Arezzo. When the word ecology was an exotic one for everyone, he had already developed important theories for the conservation of Italy's forest heritage, collecting them in the books he published. His latest, a memoir, is titled Romanzo Forestale (Forest Romance), and is the literary testament of a man who always loved whispering to trees, more than to people. And who, above all, never stopped loving and protecting them, with a keen eye on the present, but also looking to the future. In an interview with Florentine courier, in fact, with disarming clarity and calm, he had said: "In my opinion, we need a 'voice' that joins that of Greta Thunberg; that is, one that gives voice to the younger generations. A voice that joins the older one of Don Milani, who proposed a moral imperative to his students that said: 'I care.' We care for the forest!"

(Featured image from the Casentino Più portal // Photo credits: Casentino Più)

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