Glasnik Zaštite Bilja, Vol. 27 No. 6, 2004.
Original scientific paper
Virgin forest and its significance for forest management in Croatia
Igor Anić
; Zavod za uzgajanje šuma, Šumarski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to show the main characteristics of virgin forest based of scientific cognitions and explain how to apply them to the practice of forest management in Croatia. It is stated that virgin forests are unstable and structurally various, liable to changes in space and time. Different changes that virgin forest goes through in its development ( stages and phases of development) are analyzed. Observation of virgin forest is used in natural forest management. Virgin forest is seen as a “school of nature” that gives opportunity to understand the life cycle of a forest from its creation to its perishing i.e. its decay and at the same time its creation again. In the practice of forest management this corresponds to the period from the creation of a forest to its final cutting and simultaneous renewal. Regular economic forests are grown in the way that throughout their lives they are kept in the condition equivalent to the optimum virgin forest phase, and are renewed following the principles of decay subphase. This means that the renewal cutting at the end of the economic lifetime of regular forests is done in the way that imitates the process of virgin forest decay. What is decay in virgin forest, that is renewal cutting in economic forest. In virgin forest, as well as in economic forest, together with the decay or cutting there is also the growth of the new generation. Separation of trees during the attendance of forests is performed in accordance with the principles of natural selection in virgin forests. The difference is that the virgin forest has completely natural selection criteria, whereas in forest management the selection is coordinated with the aims of management. Over-piny economic forests are permanently maintained through over-piny management in the condition that corresponds to the over-piny phase in virgin forests. It comes out of the fact that fir-beech virigin forest of the Dinara Mountain looks permanently over-piny. Mainly owing to the approach of Croatian forestry Croatian forests have withheld its natural characteristics, and their surfaces have been preserved.
Keywords
virgin forest; virgin forest in Croatia; forest management; natural forest; regular forest; over-piny forest
Hrčak ID:
164399
URI
Publication date:
22.11.2004.
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