VIRGIN FORESTS AND FOREST RESERVES IN ... - Natura 2000

COST Action E4: Forest Reserves Research Network • • Proceedings of the Invited Lecturers' Reports ⁄ p. 111- 120
HUNDRED YEARS OF VIRGIN FOREST CONSERVATION IN
SLOVENIA
ABSTRACT
by Tomaž HARTMAN *
A Virgin forest - a mighty forest cathedral - is a precious natural heritage. Nowadays, at
the time of human and environmental crises, a virgin forest besides other things represents
a scientific workshop of great interest. It guards some ancient but well verified messages
on stability, security and survival harmony.
The primeval forests in the Kočevje region, which were established and preserved a
hundred years ago (among the first ones in Europe), are the outposts of today’s numerous
natural reserves in Slovenia.
INTRODUCTION
»Die Abteilungen 38 u. 39 sollen als Urwald bewahrt bleiben, daher ist hier jedwede
Nutzung ausgeschlossen.«
»Compartments 38 and 39 have to be preserved as a virgin forest. Any use of them is
therefore excluded«.
(From the first forest management plan: Herzogtum Gottschee, Wirtschaftsplan der
Betriebsklasse I. Goettenitzer Gebirge, Gueltig vom 1. Jänner 1892.)
The above ‘short’ remark helped to conserve (among the first in Europe!) the precious
natural heritage in the middle of vast virgin forests of the Kočevje region one hundred
years ago.
The first incentive to conserve the virgin forests is attributed to Dr. Leopold Hufnagel, at
that time the central administrator of Count Auersperg’s estates. Dr. Hufnagel made an
extensive ‘economic plan’ in 1892 thanks to Count Auersperg’s economic rationality and
the regulations passed by the forestry administration in 1886, by which all large forest
estates had to be utilised according to forest management plans, securing sustained yield.
As a whole, the plan was an extraordinary work since it established naturalistic selective
* T.H., BSc., Slovenia Forest Service, Rožna ulica 39, 1330 Koèevje, Slovenia