Elsevier

Forest Ecology and Management

Volume 259, Issue 3, 25 January 2010, Pages 650-656
Forest Ecology and Management

Driving forces of stability and change in woodland structure: A case-study from the Czech lowlands

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2009.11.026Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper presents how long-term socioeconomic processes influenced the management and structure of a lowland ancient wood in the south-eastern Czech Republic from the 14th century to the present. The analysis draws on a wide range of historical documents to establish that the size, management and structure of Děvín Wood was remarkably stable throughout the study period except for the last 60 years. It is argued, however, that the long-term stability of woodland management and structure contrasts with the multiple changes that can be observed in the driving forces behind this stability. Four kinds of driving forces are distinguished (business, need for firewood, nature conservation and forestry policy), whose various combinations maintained the coppice structure of the Wood for six centuries. It is concluded that landscape ‘stability’ and ‘change’ are highly context-dependent, and that socioeconomic driving factors are a crucial link between forest ecology and history, representing a means to understand and control current ecosystems and future changes. The paper also demonstrates that in European historical ecology it is necessary to integrate qualitative and quantitative sources in order to study periods before ca. 1800 AD, i.e. the appearance of modern quantitative sources, because societal processes have exerted their influence on landscapes much longer than 200 years.

Introduction

European woodlands have been directly influenced by human activities for at least 8000 years (e.g. Rackham, 2003, Billamboz, 2003, Haneca et al., 2005, Summers et al., 2008, Plue et al., 2008, Johann, 2004, Bradshaw, 2004, Gardner, 2002, Pott, 1993). As a consequence, knowledge of the long-term history of human impacts is essential to understanding the ecology of present-day forests. The first ecologically oriented studies of woodland history appeared approximately 40 years ago (e.g. Tubbs, 1968), and in the decades that followed, many studies aimed at analyzing one of the numerous aspects of human-nature interactions in wooded landscapes (e.g. Rackham, 1975, Rackham, 2003, Kirby and Watkins, 1998, Johann, 2007, Honnay et al., 2004, Agnoletti and Anderson, 2000, Warde, 2006a, Fritzbøger, 2004, Smout et al., 2005, Szabó, 2005). Such research is necessarily interdisciplinary, because it involves data and methods from the humanities as well as the natural sciences (Bürgi and Russel, 2001).

Although considerable amounts of material are available on the history of woodland clearance and management both on a local and a wider scale (Warde, 2006b, Williams, 2000), some of the key issues connecting forests and the societies that managed them have so far received less attention. Such a key issue is the question of socioeconomic driving forces of woodland management and structure (Bürgi, 1999, Bürgi and Schuler, 2003). Throughout European history, people used various management forms to produce the kinds of trees they needed for specific purposes. As their needs changed through time, so did the forms and extent of forest management. Although local environmental conditions and vegetation had to be respected, which management form was chosen in a particular wood in a given historical period almost entirely depended on woodland owners and managers. The driving forces behind the choices between the various management forms were deeply rooted in society, and they had and continue to have a huge impact on forest structure and consequently on species composition. Exploring and analyzing these driving factors not only allows for a better understanding of current forest ecosystems but also helps to develop forestry management techniques that can function in a sustainable manner in the current socioeconomic conditions.

This paper is based on a case-study of the changes and stability of management forms in a Czech ancient wood in the past 650 years. My main aims are to establish the size of Děvín Wood in different historical periods, and to ascertain how it has been managed since the 14th century. Based on these results, I examine the historical socioeconomic context to determine the possible driving forces behind the management forms in different periods and I also try to find out why various systems of driving forces replaced each other. With few exceptions (e.g. Verheyen et al., 1999, Rackham, 2003), existing historical ecological studies of particular woods cover shorter time periods (100–200 years). In a wider methodological context, this paper is also an attempt to bridge the disciplinary gap between history and forest ecology for a longer time series including the European Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, in which quantitative datasets routinely used by historical ecologists are often not available.

Section snippets

Study area

Děvín Wood lies on top of a small but conspicuous hill (550 asl) in the otherwise flat south-eastern part of the Czech Republic, 35 km south of Brno and 75 km north of Vienna in Austria (Fig. 1). The Wood covers an area of ca. 260 ha in the north-western tip of the Pannonian biogeographical region. The forest vegetation comprises xerothermic oak communities (Quercion pubescenti-petraeae), thermophilous to mesophilous oak-hornbeam forests (Carpinion), and ravine forests dominated by large-leaved

Materials and methods

Modern forestry with its extensive bureaucratic procedures and large-scale document production appeared in the study region ca. 200 years ago. As a result, for the last two centuries detailed surveys are available about the management, structure and size of Děvín Wood. From before that time, information on woodland is nearly always secondary in the sense that it was produced for some other purpose than describing forests. Most available documents are parts of surveys that were intended to

Extent of woodland

Data show that Děvín Wood has changed remarkably little since the late 17th century and probably earlier (Fig. 2). Although the 1414 urbarium gives no information about acreages, the woodlots mentioned therein seem to cover the area of the present Wood. The 1675 map shows the Wood basically as it is today. The first survey that provides exact measurements is from 1750 (MZA F18 inv.č. 7607), and the size of Děvín Wood recorded here (211 ha) is almost exactly the same as the one given in 1948 (212 

Forest size and management

Generally speaking, Děvín Wood was characterised by remarkable stability from the 14th to the 20th centuries both in terms of its size and its management. The apparent growth in the area it covers results from two processes. On the one hand, plantations were established on the south-western side and central plateau from the 1880s on. On the other hand, some of the surrounding pasture, farmland and vineyards were invaded by woodland vegetation, especially in the deep valley that separates the

Conclusions

This paper presented how long-term socioeconomic processes influenced the structure of a lowland ancient wood in the south-eastern Czech Republic from the 14th century to the present. Results showed that the management and structure of Děvín Wood was remarkably stable throughout the study period except for the last 60 years. This long-term stability contrasts with the multiple changes that can be observed in the driving forces. This raises the issue of the interpretation of ‘stability’ and

Acknowledgements

This paper was written with the help of grant IAA600050812 and institutional long-term research plan AV0Z60050516, both from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. I would like to thank Lucie Křížová for her help with my work in the Moravian Archives, Andreas Mölder for expert advice on German material, Radim Hédl for his insights on the first version of this text, and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

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