What is the history of the Pineta Granducale?

The Pineta Granducale, près d’Alberese in the Maremma Park, is a forest planted by man, and not an ancient woodland left untouched. The first plantings date back to the late 18th century; the archives attest to its presence in 1824, over about 95 hectares. Between 1831 et 1848, under the grand dukes of Tuscany of the House of Lorraine, the seedlings were developed as part of the land reclamation works in this wet plain, between the Ombrone, the sea and the Uccellina hills.

Umbrella pines were planted mainly to harvest their pine nuts, a precious food resource, and to make use of soils unsuitable for crops. It was also believed that conifers would purify the air and fight malaria — a belief of the time, not a medically sound explanation. The harvest employed the pinottolai, workers who knocked the cones down from the trees. At the beginning of the 20th century, the pine forest covered just over 600 hectares.

Productive management ended around the late 20th century. Since then, the Mediterranean maquis has been reclaiming the undergrowth and the pine forest is evolving: the pines are ageing, regenerate with difficulty and some are declining. Its history is thus also that of an agricultural and forest landscape that is changing, rather than that of an unchanging forest.