Professional forest management
They are a source of clean air, water and an irreplaceable raw material – wood. Used by people since ancient times and yet little appreciated. Today, their true and untamed form can only rarely be seen (most often in nature reserves, where people have left nature to nature). However, there are forests that are under the constant influence of humans. At first glance, you would call them natural forests, but their status is that of a commercial forest. We are talking about forests that stretch through the Volovské Mountains below Kloptaň Mountain, in the area of the Smolnícka osada forest complex, where people and nature manage the land together.
The foresters in this area, initially Ing. Jozef Burgan, later forester Ladislav Alcnauer, who began managing hundreds of hectares of forest land in a nature-friendly way, and today his successor Jaroslav Kovalčík, allow the forests to develop under the influence of natural forces. The aim is for nature itself to show what the forest should look like on the given land and which tree species should grow there. The forest manager then selects and assesses whether a tree or a small group of trees has fulfilled its purpose in the forest (trees with the target diameter, trees left to shape the subsequent generation, trees in poor health, etc.). This type of management is called selection management, from the word selection, and its basic philosophy is to grow trees to their target diameter and regenerate forests naturally without exposing large areas of forest soil.
For a forester to manage a forest in this way, they primarily need:
-a skilled forestry staff (so that logging is carried out professionally = carefully)
-high-quality forest roads; this does not mean asphalt haul roads (with forest roads, the more forest roads there are, the gentler the logging and the more favourable the condition of the roads)
-high-quality logging machinery (so that timber harvesting is safe and gentle on the soil, forest roads and harvested wood)
The result of selection management in Smolnícka osada is forests where various tree species (beech, fir, spruce, pine, maple and others) alternate across a small area, with different trunk diameters and heights and their various age stages (from annual seedlings to almost 200-year-old trees). Local foresters have built a forest educational trail for the public in undemanding terrain, also suitable for the youngest visitors. We recommend visiting it.
Near the educational trail there is also the Zbojnícka dolina old-growth forest remnant.
Author: Miroslav Bača
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