History, current status and future prospects of uneven-aged forest management in the Dinaric region: an overview

The development of uneven-aged forest management in the Dinaric region (north-west Balkans) is reviewed. Uneven-aged silviculture has been the major silvicultural system in the region since regular forest management began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Regular forest management in former virgin forest areas began as selection forest management mainly because of the awareness of the importance of multilayered continuous forest cover for preventing soil erosion on carbonate substrate. The observed period of more than 100 years has seen several changes to uneven-aged forest management ranging from the complete domination of rigid selection forest management to the gradual acceptance and eventual domination of the irregular shelterwood system and finally to the acceptance of freestyle forest management, which is presently practiced in the Slovenian part of the Dinaric region. Freestyle silviculture combines practices of different silvicultural systems. By using this system, consideration for site conditions and heterogeneous stand dynamics at small spatial scales is possible. In the observed period, some stand parameters of Dinaric forests have changed substantially. Growing stock has increased significantly, the number of large-diameter trees has increased and alternation of the main tree species (silver fir and European beech) has occurred. The development of uneven-aged forest management is described and its prospects are discussed.