Šumarski list, Vol. 133 No. 5-6, 2009.
Uvodnik
HOW TO SECURE THE FUTURE OF YOUNG, NATURALLY MANAGED FORESTS IN CROATIA DURING RECESSION
Branimir Prpić
; Hrvatsko šumarsko društvo Zagreb
Sažetak
General recession and shortage of money is taking their toll not only on wood industry but also on forestry as an economic branch that depends on timber processing. Apart from taking care of environ mental protection, forestry also provides social and ecophysical forest functions of general benefit. In the European Union today, the value of non-market forest functions exceeds that of timber by thirty, or even fifty times. The most valuable non-market forest functions include the water protection role, i.e. drinking water, and the carbon sink function, which reduces the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and slows down global warming.
An important reason for the good structure of state forests in forest ecosystems managed on a close-to-nature principle is tending. Tending practices are applied to forests until the age of twenty, or maybe thirty (the first, and half of the second age class).
The consequence of silvicultural measures undertaken at the mentioned age significantly affects the future forest structure and its role in supplying raw material and non-market functions. The forestry profession has been particularly successful in the application of tending related to negative and posi tive selection of young trees. If these silvicultural treatments are omitted, a stand will be formed in dis cordance with close-to-nature forest management and the provision of raw material and non-market functions. One negative example of the absence of tending in pedunculate oak lowland forests is their conversion into pure hornbeam forests. In combination with present-day effects of global warming and a drop in groundwater levels, such cases will gain in frequency.
Even though the financial condition is difficult, forestry should strive to find the means for the appli cation of tending measures; otherwise, the consequences will be catastrophic. Adverse consequences may span over two to three generations of forestry experts.
Professor Branimir Prpić, PhD
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
39460
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.6.2009.
Posjeta: 1.251 *