“We don’t do it for the truffles. You might have only two trees in a hectare where they grow,” Mr. Marenda said. “If these abandoned trees get sick, it’s easy for the parasite to travel to the nearby organic wine production. The whole area is in danger.”

They started working with some wine producers who said they understood the importance of protecting the uncultivated forests around their vineyards and tending to them.

Last month, “Save the Truffle” inspired a wider crowdfunding campaign, “Breathe the Truffle,” started by the Alba Truffle Show, an 86-year-old truffle fair in the autumn that allows hunters to sell their mushrooms directly.

It hopes to fund the cleanup of four once truffle-yielding woods in southern Piedmont, and is the first tangible sign of the community’s rising awareness of the need for greater harmony in the environment.

“Truffle hunters were complaining more and more,” Mr. Bonelli explained. “Vineyards and wine sales were doing well, and they had time to focus on something that has a long-term large fallout: environmental preservation.”

Especially in the past decade, the woods in and around Barolo have increasingly been neglected. As wine production has become more profitable, an estimated 30 percent more land has been converted to vineyards in the past 10 years, at the expense of surrounding areas.

And the problem is not just that woods are under pressure. Farmers have also stopped collecting forest wood for heating, reducing their incentive to clear the forest floor.