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

COST Action E4: Forest Reserves Research Network 123
A specially relevant fact and a sad statement of great concern is that that we are not
supposed to talk about cultural landscape in Europe any more. This landscape has become
an artificial savanna, a non-cultural landscape with occasional remains.
We have to change our opinion about our ancestors completely. The ancestors who were
not able to practice sustainable ways of life because human being became a foreign body
in Nature. This statement needs deeper explanation.
We have to look upon new ways how to team up with our environment. How to find
friendly ways of cohabitation with Nature.
SOME IMPORTANT EXCEPTIONS (FOR FORMER SLOVENIA WITHIN AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN
EMPIRE)
As to the way the forests were treated in continental and Mediterranean part of Europe,
Slovenia was no exception. For all these regions, similar history of forest management
can be written (the theory and practice about even-aged forestry, spruce monocultures,
clear-cuts, much the same silvicultural systems, etc.). But rather early we could find some
exceptions in Slovenia due to its special geographical position, and these showed
completely new ways of forest management. These were probably the result of
excessively ruined landscape in this part of Europe, i.e. the disappearance of forests in the
sub-Mediterranean part of Slovenia, the removal of forests of up to 1/3 of the original size
in the most of Slovenia, overexploitation, overcutting, overgrazing in forests, litter
collecting, animal fodder collecting, and pollarding in those still existing forests. The
Slovenian landscape became a torrential landscape, from the Alpine to the sub-Pannonian
region. It is not surprising that very early the Vienna Forestry School developed the
science of 'how to protect lives against torrents and avalanches'. The history tells us about
other exceptions when authorities, forestry organisations, and some individuals started to
be concerned with new ways how to manage the forests in an appropriate, more or less
close-to-nature way.
The example of Josef Ressel as a representative of foresters'
sustainable way of thinking
Let's begin with re-naturalisation of the Karst landscape in the sub-Mediterranean region
of Slovenia. The Karst area was completely ruined for a very long period. In the mid
19 th century there was only 5 - 10% of shrub vegetation distributed in small spots of the
Karst area. Because of these changes living conditions became very severe. Eroded rocky
landscape, drought, heavy winds, extreme heat in vegetation period, overgrazing, lack of
fuel, etc., have contributed to poor living conditions in this area. The land was partly
abandoned. Foresters were the first to start rethinking and to look for new ways to restore
life in this part of Slovenia. There are few foresters who started to re-establish the forests
in this area. Already in the mid 19 th century the forester - generalist Josef Ressel, mainly
employed by the Austrian navy, started to plant new forests in a different way. The
foresters experimented with the so called 'climax tree species' (broad-leaved tree species),
and finally found a pioneer tree species (Pinus nigra) to fit the climate. Josef Ressel was
by nature an inventor, and he became known for many of his patents (e.g. the steamer