The details of the duties devolving upon this organization are found in a series of laws, applicable to different parts of the empire, which are based upon the recognition of protection forests, in which sanctioned working plans regulate the management. Forcible reforestation and employment of competent foresters in these are obligatory. Now, altogether about 60% of the Austrian forest area is managed under working plans.
A special reboisement law for the extinction of destructive torrents was the result of unusual damage by floods in Tirol and Karinthia, in 1882. The basis for this legislation was laid by a translation from the French of Demontzey’s great work on the reboisement of mountains, by v. Seckendorff in 1880, and a subsequent report by the same author in 1883. A law, similar to that of the French was enacted in 1884, for the regulation of torrential streams. A special fund for the work was created to which the interested parties are required to contribute, assisted by annual subventions from the State. The contributions of the State have averaged from 40 to 60%, of the provinces 20 to 50%, the interested parties having contributed 30% of the round five million dollars expended on this work by 1901. In 1910, the contribution to the melioration fund by the State had grown to 1.6 million dollars. At the same time, for the regulation of the lower rivers an appropriation of $1,350,000 was made, of which $400,000 was to be used for reforestation work.
This work as well as the reforestation of the Karst (see [p. 173]) under the laws of 1881, 1883, 1885, is carried on by the forest protective service.
On the whole, the forest policy of Austria tends toward harmony with forest owners and liberation of private property. By reduction of railroad freights, which are under government management, by abolition of export duties, by reasonable tax assessments, etc., the wood export trade (now exceeding 30 million dollars) is favored; by the extinction of rights of user under liberal laws improvement in forest management is made possible, the Emperor setting a good example by having renounced, in 1858, his superior right to forest reservations in the Alp districts.
The best exemplification of the spirit of the Austrian forest policy and of the methods of forest organization and administration is to be found in the administration of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina described in a volume published in 1905 by the veteran Austrian forester, Ludwig Dimitz.[6]
[6] Die forstlichen Verhältnisse und Einrichtungen Bosniens und der Herzegovina, Ludwig Dimitz, Vienna, 1905, pp. 389. See Forestry Quarterly, Vol. III, p. 113.
Here, the Austrian government has in the short time of 25 years succeeded in bringing orderly conditions into the forest management. Until 1878, these countries were provinces of Turkey and were placed under Austrian suzerainty as a result of the Russo-Turkish War. The Turks had already attempted a management of the forest lands, which were in their entirety claimed by the Sultan. Property conditions being entirely unclear when the Austrians assumed the administration, these questions had first to be settled by a survey. This survey resulted in showing a forest area of 6.3 million acres, 51% of the land area, of which probably all but about 1.5 million acres is private or communal property; half of the state property is fully stocked and it is estimated that about 100 million cubic feet is the annual increment.
4. State Forest Administration.
The State domain in the first half of the 19th century had been reduced by sales from nearly 10 million acres to 4.5 million acres, and to a little over 3 million acres in 1855. In that year, about one-half of this property was handed over to the National Bank to secure the State’s indebtedness of $30,000,000, and between 1860 and 1870 further sales reduced the domain to about its present size of 1.8 million acres productive forest. In 1872, however, a new policy, and the present organization were instituted.