Top of the World
A site like no other, this majestic, ancient woodland in the centre of the Calabria region has been thriving intact since the 17th century in the shade of its imposing “patriarchs”, giving rise to an impressive spectacle of nature. On the plateau of the Sila region, there is a monumental woodland that plays host to 350-year-old trees that are 45 metres in height, with trunks 2 metres wide. This ancient woodland features more than 60 Calabrian pines and sycamores planted in the 17th century by the baronial Mollo family, owners of the nearby farmhouse, which was donated to FAI in 2016 by the family.
The woodland was exploited over the centuries by shepherds to extract a flammable, tar-like resin from the trunks; it was a valuable resource in the 17th and 18th centuries, and was subject to numerous edicts issued by the government of Naples with a view to limiting the frequent threats to cut the trees down. In the Second World War, the land was expropriated and then reintegrated into the assets of the Italian Forestry Commission, which – together with the Mollo family – promoted the establishment of the Guided Biogenetic Nature Reserve with a view to studying, genetically conserving and protecting this immensely valuable historic and natural heritage. Today, human intervention here has the sole purpose of allowing nature to take its course and making it possible to observe the natural evolution of the woodland, offering a wilderness to animals that now live in very few other places in Italy.
