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

COST Action E4: Forest Reserves Research Network 59
– public relations between society and the role of forest and foresters
– limiting the impact of non-forest threats onto the forest formation
– formation and protection of natural environment.
The accomplished in Poland forest policy considering the demands of the sustainable
development, focuses on the functions and problems of nature protection (GRZYWACZ
1994, SZUJECKI 1994). The importance of problems of nature protection in forest policy is
evident in, e.g. the nation-wide assessment of forest (LONKIEWICZ 1996a) or in the
introduction of the obligatory preparation of programs of nature protection at the scale of
forest district (ANONYMOUS 1996b) the main purpose of which is illustration of natural
richness, presentation of natural values and threats, and presentation of object of interest
on the background of the region or the country; determination of hierarchy of groups of
functions of particular forest complexes, definition of new objects worth protection and
determination of aims and methods of their protection. The protection of nature in the
biggest forest enterprise in Poland: State Forests is being accomplished in accordance
with the Forest Act of 1991 (ANONYMOUS 1997a,b) and instructions of General Director
of State Forests (ANONYMOUS 1994) within the framework of THE SYSTEM OF
NATURE PROTECTION AND FORMATION OF NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IN
STATE FORESTS, the latter has been result of realisation of selected topics of nature
protection, the rational formation of the natural environment, the social expectations as
well as the economic needs and possibilities of the country. This system is being
accomplished through:
1. Special forms of nature protection (nature reserves, nature monuments, ecological
values, documentation posts, protection of protected, endangered and rare species),
2. protection forests of general purpose (e.g. water-protecting, soil-protecting forest,
game refuges),
3. protection forest of special purpose (e.g. forest in area of pollution damage,
permanent experimental plots, forest surrounding health centers, forest in cities)
4. transition zone of reserves and national parks
5. multi-functional forest (economic forests).
The following functions are dominant in the above-listed groups of forests:
– exclusively protection functions: in objects from the special forms of protection.
The only purpose of a forester’s activity in such objects is accomplishment of the
aims defined in the plans of protection (e.g. reserves) and preservation of their
natural richness.
– the leading protection function and the accompanying minor importance
production function - in protection forests (both of general and special purpose) as
well as in the transition zones of reserves and national parks. The production of
wood is in this group forests of secondary importance and it is not decisive in the
principles of management activities.
– the productive-protection function - present in the multi-function forest. In this
group of forest (3.3 M. ha altogether) the production function and the protection
function are equally important. These forests fulfil the protection function
continuously during their entire life cycle (some 100 years) while they fulfil the
production function only a few times: on the occasions of thinning and final cut.