A Brief History of Forestry. / In Europe, the United States and Other Countries

by B. E. Fernow

The iron industry in the more northern provinces had led early to a more conservative use of forest properties for fuel, and since the mines were regal property the dukes had a special interest in their conservation.

In the Alp territory, especially in Styria, the regal right to the mines combined with the Forsthoheit led early to the reservation by the dukes of whatever forest was not fenced or owned by special grant for the use of the mines. In addition, a superior right was asserted by them in some of the private forests to all the forest produce beyond the personal requirements of the owners, for use of the mines at a small tax; and what other private property existed was burdened by innumerable rights of user. The exercise of these rights, and the warfare against irksome restrictions led to widespread illegal exploitation and devastation, which as early as the 15th century had proceeded to such an extent that in Tyrol associations for protection against the torrents were already then in existence. Yet in this province, scantily populated, with one-third of its area unproductive and one-third forested, wasteful exploitation continued until recent times.

In Krain, which was unusually well wooded, forest reservations were made for the use of the mines and furnaces in 1510 and 1515, these reservations comprising all forest lands within a given radius. The balance was mostly divided among small owners, whose unrestricted, unconservative exploitation continued into the latter half of the 19th century.

In Styria, nearly one-half wooded and one-third unproductive, a regulated management was attempted as early as 1572, and by subsequent forest ordinances of 1695, 1721 and 1767 devastation was to be checked. But the resistance of the peasants to the regulations and the inefficiency of the forest service were such that no substantial improvement resulted.

In Galicia, unusually extensive rights of user in the crown forests led to their devastation, and the attempts to regulate the exercise of these rights by ordinances in 1782 and 1802 were unsuccessful.

The forest area along the coast of the Adriatic in Istria and Dalmatia had furnished shiptimber even to the ancients. The Venetians becoming the owners of the country in the 15th century declared all forests national property, reserved for shiptimber, and placed them under management. They instituted a forest service, regulated pasturing, and forbade clearing. The oak coppice was to be cut in 8 to 12 year rotation, with standards to be left for timber, etc. A reorganization of this service with division into districts is recorded in the 16th century, when Charles V, in 1520, instituted a “forest college,” i.e., administration. But the district officers, capitani ai boschi, being underpaid, carried on a nefarious trade on their own account, and by 1775, the whole country was already ruined in spite of attempts at reform; the “Karst” problem remained unsolved; and, when Austria secured Dalmatia, in 1897, that country too was found in the same deplorable condition, the forest area, there in the hands of the peasants, having suffered by pasture and indiscriminate cutting.

It was the work of Maria Theresa to reform the administration of the various branches of government, and wholesome legislation was also extended to the forest branch by her forest ordinance of 1754, which remained in force until 1852. It relieved the private owners, who held most of the forest area, from the restrictions hitherto imposed, except in the frontier forests. These, for strategic reasons, were to be managed according to special working plans prepared by the “patriotic economic society.” The management of communal forests also was specially regulated. Otherwise the ordinance merely recommended in general terms orderly system and the stopping of abuses.

In 1771, another forest ordinance proposed to extend the same policy of private unrestricted ownership to the Karst forests, with the idea that thereby better conditions would most likely be secured; but, since here the property was not as in Bohemia in large estates but in small farmers’ hands, the result was disastrous, as we shall see later: it merely led to increased devastation.

The same result followed the increase of private peasant ownership which came with the abolishment of serfdom in 1781. In 1782, an ordinance full of wise prescriptions against wasteful practice intended for the Northwest territory sought to check the improvident forest destruction.

A further wholesome influence on private forest management was exercised by the tax assessment reform in 1788, when not only a more reasonable assessment but for the first time a difference was made in taxation of managed as opposed to unmanaged woods and the epoch-making fertile idea of the normal forest was announced (see [p. 115]). At the same time the hunting privileges and other burdens, hampering forest properties were abolished, and measures for the extinguishment of the rights of user enacted.