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ŠUMARSKI LIST 13/2005 str. 255     <-- 255 -->        PDF

FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR - IN - CHIEF


ANTI-EROSION AND WATER PROTECTIVE ROLE AS THE MOST
IMPORTANT NON-COMMERCIAL FOREST FUNCTION


This supplement to Forest Journal (Šumarski List) represents the proceedings of the
international conference held in Zagreb on 23rd November 2004 under the title "The anti-
erosive and water-protective role of forest and methods of its maintenance and
improvement". The initiative for the conference came from the Croatian Academy of
Forestry Sciences and the IUFRO groups 8.01.00 Forest Ecosystems and 8.01.08
Lowland Forest Ecosystems, as well as from the MZLU Faculty of Forestry and
Wood Technology in Brno (Lesnicka a drevarska fakulta MZLU Brno) and the
Faculty of Forestry of Zagreb University.


Forestry scientists of Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia presented the results of
their research on the two most important non-commercial forest functions: anti-erosive
and water-protective functions. These two forest roles, which belong to a group of ecological
or protective forest functions together with climatic and anti-immission ones, and
the hydrological function which regulates water relationships in space and in fact represents
a bridge between the anti-erosive and water-protective function, are the most important
agents in the protection of human environment.


The almost neglected beneficial role of forests will increasingly gain in importance
and economic value in the 21st century. Social forest functions consisting of aesthetic,
health, recreational and tourist functions are very important but not decisive; in contrast,
the anti-erosive function, which also protects from torrents, and the water-protective
function, which governs the quantity of potable water in underground flows and springs,
is indispensable. This also relates to watercourses which receive water from underground
flows and to surface waters which seep through humus-rich surface horizons of forest
soil. The above forest functions often have a crucially important impact on human life.
Sudden floods and torrents endanger people´s lives, while lack of potable water in the
environment impoverishes man and deprives him of a civilized way of life. In economically
stronger communities existing in waterless areas, drinking water is transported
from water-rich areas, whereas in poor communities people are often doomed to death
from thirst and famine.


This international conference contains topics of exceptional importance, among which
those relating to silvicultural treatments aimed at preserving and improving the anti-erosive
and water-protective role of forests arouse particular interest (Matić et al.). Soil-preserving
technologies of stand regeneration and timber harvesting greatly contribute to the
maintenance of the anti-erosive forest function (Horek et al.). It is well known that only a
forest with a balanced relationship between the site and the biocoenosis is capable of providing
all generally beneficial functions. Apart from the already mentioned ecological and
social functions, the forest will also ensure a social-ecological set of functions: genetic,
bio-diverse, natural-protective and eco-physiological, of which the last relates to capturing
carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen during photosynthesis, as well as to alelopathic
relations (phytoncydes).


Rotation should be adjusted to the length of active life of forest trees; in other words, it
should observe initial changes in physiological functions that indicate ageing and
decreased photosynthesis, as well as the efficiency of most non-commercial functions.
Simultaneously, profitability of raw material and energetic function should also be taken
into account. With ageing, the eco-physiological (carbon sequestration) and anti-erosive
functions of a forest are greatly reduced due to bare strips and clearings resulting from its
decomposition. From a contemporary standpoint, to retain a forest in the optimal stage
between rejuvenation and ageing we should apply concepts of virgin forests between two
natural regenerations (Korpel, Leibuindgut, Mlinšek, Matić, Prpić et al.).


Professor Branimir Prpić, PhD