Landscapes Forest and Global Change - ESA - Escola Superior ...

B. Bożętka 2010. Recent relations between forestry and agriculture in Poland
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unplanned reforestation. Contrary to forest and semi-wild landscapes, an agricultural landscape
formed by large modern orchards is linked with intensive cultivation.
Semi-wild landscapes develop in two main ways. First one appears when large patches
are adjoined to neighbouring forests and this usually involves occurrence of unclear boundaries.
Such situation is frequently met in N and NW Poland. Second is connected with small patches
of abandoned land. A dispersed sequence employs tiny individual parcels or their aggregations;
the sets are often separated from each other and have partly legible boundaries. This is mostly
the case of an agricultural landscape of central, eastern and southern Poland. Parts of the
agricultural landscape transformed into wide semi-wild or forest landscapes, to quote the
example of the Bieszczady mountains, where after land abandonment dense associations of
broadleaved trees and bushes appeared (Wanic 2009).
Table 1. Tendencies of the rural landscape transformation in Poland in the context of openness-enclosureregional
differences and main factors of change (source: author’s own research).
Tendency ⇒ open landscape
Tendency ⇒ enclosed landscape
1. Open fields
• increase in intensively cultivated
arable fields; particularly western,
north-western and central Poland
• decrease in meadows and pastures
(transformed into arable fields);
Silesia, Wielkopolska
• decrease in orchards (partly
transformed into arable fields); Silesia,
north- west.
1. Forest landscape
• spreading out of formerly established
large forests: north, north-east, northwest,
western borders and south-east
e.g. owing to contemporary intensive
reforestation.
2. Semi-wild landscape
• extensive land abandonment
followed by natural succession and
later designated for forests: north,
north- west, Bieszczady
• land abandonment at a less range –
individual parcels overgrowing with
trees and bushes: mainly central,
southern and eastern Poland
3. Agricultural enclosed landscape
• increase in the amount and character
of orchards (mainly Vistula Valley,
central and eastern Poland).
Some of previously outlined tendencies of landscape transformation exhibit at least one
common feature: expansion of relatively huge homogeneous areas. However, organization of
these areas is different. Open fields are usually formed by large patches occupied by cereals
(mainly wheat, triticale, barley and lately maize), have clearly defined boundaries and a small
quantity of other habitats (and inner shapes). Forest landscapes are almost always constituted by
large patches spreading out from ‘nucleus’ towards agricultural land or constituted by dispersed
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.