How Białowieża Forest preserved its primevalness? The development of management and protection in the fourteenth−eighteenth centuries (original) (raw)
Related papers
Conservation and hunting: Białowieża Forest in the time of kings
2005
The Białowieża Forest survived thanks to its status of a royal property and special protection over centuries. This last fragment of European primeval forests is not only a natural heritage but also a cultural legacy from our forefathers. This book is based on results of the most recent research in the history of the Forest's natural environment. It reveals some events from the old times, such as: royal hunts, fate of the hunting manors in Bialowieża, as well as the ups and downs of European bison protective initiatives. It shows various efforts and how effective they were to come to a compromise between protecting the nature and taking advantage of it.
Multidimensional tracking and consequences of the usage of forest products in Early Modern Poland
The quantification of human impacts on past forest ecosystems becomes more challenging as one goes deeper into the past. This is primarily due to a scarcity of appropriate source material. It is well known that the inclusion of the Polish lands in the zone of economic ties with Western Europe at the end of the 15th century enabled intensive export of cereal and forest products. In this paper, we have used place names established before 1600 to demonstrate how ancient forests were exploited. By analyzing the naming material, we distinguished three basic types of names related to logging, industrial production, and beekeeping. In addition, we have included several theoretical considerations related to the environmental consequences of forest exploitation. Thus, our article provides a strong basis for further research into the environmental effects of past landscape changes.
The royal forests of the Árpáds in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
Journal of Medieval History, 2023
This paper deals with the royal forests in the kingdom of Hungary. Few sources have survived from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it is therefore difficult to find any references to the forests of the Árpád dynasty. For this reason, research on medieval royal forests in Western Europe informs the interpretation of what information there is and shapes a comparison with the situation in the kingdom of Hungary. The ways in which royal forests are mentioned in medieval sources has allowed some of them to be identified in the context of dynastic estates, along with royal foresters or hunting servants. Isolated references to the regale, the monarch's exclusive right to hunting and fishing, also illuminate the study.
Białowieża Forest—A Relic of the High Naturalness of European Forests
Forests
In Europe only some small isolated patches of forests with a high degree of naturalness still exist. These are forests, whose structure, composition and function has been shaped by natural dynamics without substantial anthropogenic influence over the long period. In this respect, Białowieża Forest is a unique location in Europe, with continuous forest cover for close to 12,000 years. The palynological, archaeological and historical data document only a weak anthropogenic fingerprint compared to other European lowland forests in Holocene history. Due to long-lasting protection, a large portion of the forest is still composed of stands originating from the pre-silvicultural period. Moreover, the stands of Białowieża Forest converted by silvicultural activities during the 20th century have the potential to recover owing to patches of stands with high naturalness, scattered throughout the forest. As conflict over management of the forest has recurred regularly for close to century, ther...
State Forestry is regarded by political ecologists as a coercive tool deployed by state authorities to nationalize, control and order the forest as a resource within the territory of a nation. The consequence of this is civilizing local people and subjecting them to the grip of the state. Much of this literature comes from the global South. However, in the iconic Białowieża Forest in eastern Poland, touted as Europe's last primeval forest for its old oaks and woodland bison, state foresters altered the prominence of their nationalistic and nationalizing history in three surprising ways: 1) they downplayed their historical role in nationalizing the periphery in the 1920s when the area was split between a national park and a forest belonging to the newly formed Polish state (the Second Polish Republic); 2) they created new allegiances with the Belarusian-identified local population, and 3) they referenced neighbouring Belarus' preferential management of forests within the adjacent Belovezshkaya National Park. This article weaves together insights from political ecology, post-socialist studies and environmental history in an ethnographic account of Polish state foresters in interaction with biologists, conservationists and "local" people in the fight to expand the Polish Białowieża National Park from 1990-2013. Foresters downplayed the forest's significance for the nation, at least rhetorically, because conservationists viewed and promoted the forest as having national, European and global heritage. Yet the globalized cosmopolitics of conservationists enabled, or perhaps even forced, foresters to frame their concerns in a language of local and ethnic minority rights and community participation. The transcendence of ethnic and cultural differences by foresters over nearly ninety years of existence marks an important and novel component of the post-socialist period. La foresterie domaniale est considérée par les «political ecologists» comme un outil coercitif déployés par les autorités de l'État de nationaliser, de contrôler et d'ordonner la forêt sur le territoire d'une nation. La conséquence de contrôle par l'État est la civilisation des populations locales et en les soumettant à la poignée de l'État. Une grande partie de cette littérature vient du Sud. Toutefois, dans la forêt de Białowieża dans l'est de la Pologne, présentée comme dernière forêt primitive d'Europe pour ses vieux chênes et les bisons des bois, les forestiers de l'État modifier l'importance de leur histoire nationalistes et la nationalisation de trois façons surprenantes: 1) il a minimisé leurs actions passées dans les années 1920s, lorsque la zone a été divisée entre un parc national et une forêt appartenant à la nouvelle Deuxième République de Pologne; 2) ils ont créé de nouvelles allégeances avec la population locale du Bélarus, et 3) ils ont regardé à travers la frontière pour comprendre la gestion des forêts de Biélorussie et leurs parcs. Cet article tisse idées de l'écologie politique, les études post-socialistes et de l'histoire de l'environnement dans la lutte pour élargir le parc national polonais Białowieża 1990-2013. Les forestiers ont reconnu la valeur de la conservation internationale de la forêt, et pas seulement sa valeur économique. Ils ont soutenu les droits des minorités locales et ethniques et la participation communautaire. La transcendance des différences ethniques et culturelles par les forestiers sur près de 90 années d'existence marque un élément important et nouveau de la période post-socialiste. Los parques forestales estatales son considerados por los especialistas en política ecológica como una herramienta coercitiva implementada por las autoridades estatales para nacionalizar, controlar y ordenar la masa forestal como recurso dentro de un territorio o una nación. La consecuencia de esto es civilizar a la población local y someterla al control del estado. Gran parte de la literatura al respecto proviene del Sur global. Sin embargo, en el icónico bosque Białowieża en el este de Polonia, considerado como el último bosque primitivo por sus viejos robles y sus bisontes europeos los silvicultores estatales alteraron la prominencia de su historia nacionalista y nacionalizadora de tres maneras sorprendentes: 1) minimizaron su papel histórico al nacionalizar la periferia en la década de 1920 cuando el área se dividió entre un parque nacional y un bosque perteneciente al estado polaco recién formado (la Segunda República polaca); 2) crearon nuevas alianzas con la población local que se identificaba como bielorrusa, y 3) la relacionaron con la gestión preferencial de los bosques de la vecina Bielorrusia en el Parque Nacional adyacente Belovezshkaya. En este artículo se entrelazan puntos de vista de la ecología política, estudios sobre el post-socialismo e historia del medio ambiente en un informe etnográfico de los silvicultores estatales polacos en la interacción con los biólogos, conservacionistas y personas "locales" en la lucha para ampliar el Parque Nacional de Białowieża polaco entre 1990 y 2013. Los silvicultores minimizaron la importancia del bosque para la nación, al menos retóricamente, porque los conservacionistas percibieron y promovieron el bosque como patrimonio nacional, europeo y mundial. Sin embargo, la cosmopolítica globalizada de los conservacionistas permitió, o tal vez incluso forzó a los silvicultores a enmarcar sus inquietudes en un lenguaje de derechos de las minorías étnicas y locales y la participación comunitaria. La trascendencia de las diferencias étnicas y culturales por los silvicultores durante casi noventa años de existencia marca un componente importante y novedoso del período post-socialista.
2020
In the 13th and the 14th century, grand dukes had exclusive rights to the forests and aquatic resources of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They maintained these rights in the 15th century despite the fact that the rights to royal forests and aquatic had been widely distributed since the reign of Vytautas. Beginning in the second decade of the 16th century, grand dukes became increasingly interested in the productivity of land belonging to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in particular forests and aquatic resources. Their concern was largely motivated by the financial burden placed on the Lithuanian treasury in connection with the MuscoviteLithuanian wars and the economic reforms implemented by Queen Bona and Sigismundus II Augustus. The monarchs passed laws regulating access to royal land in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. These regulations improved the management of royal land, protected forests against illegal logging and prevented excessive exploitation of water fauna (especially fish)....
PLOS ONE
Studies of past forest use traditions are crucial in both understanding the present state of the oldest European forests, and in guiding decisions on future forest conservation and management. Current management of Poland's Białowieża Forest (BF), one of the bestpreserved forests of the European lowlands, is heavily influenced by anecdotal knowledge on forest history. Therefore, it is important to gain knowledge of the forest's past in order to answer questions about its historical administration, utilisation, and associated anthropogenic changes. Such understanding can then inform future management. This study, based on surveys in Belarussian and Russian archives and a preliminary field survey in ten forest compartments of Białowieża National Park, focuses on culturally-modified trees (CMTs), which in this case are by-products of different forms of traditional forest use. Information about the formation of the CMTs can then be used to provide insight into former forest usage. Two types of CMTs were discovered to be still present in the contemporary BF. One type found in two forms was of 1) pine trees scorched and chopped in the bottom part of the trunk and 2) pine trees with carved beehives. A second type based on written accounts, and therefore known to be present in the past (what we call a 'ghost CMT'), was of 3) lime-trees with strips of bark peeled from the trunk. Written accounts cover the period of transition between the traditional forest management (BF as a Polish royal hunting ground, until the end of the eighteenth century) and modern, "scientific" forestry (in most European countries introduced in the second half of the nineteenth century). These accounts document that both types of CMTs and the traditional forest uses responsible for their creation were considered harmful to "rational forestry" by the nineteenth-century forest administration. Thus the practices which created CMTs were banned and the trees gradually removed from the forest. Indeed, these activities drew the attention of forest administrators for several decades, and in our view delayed the introduction of new, timber-oriented, forest management in the BF.
Białowieża Primeval Forest as a remnant of culturally modified ancient forest
European Journal of Forest Research, 2012
The present and past population status of oak (Quercus robur) in the Białowie_ za National Park preserve (BNP) was analyzed with respect to the historic use of the ecosystem. I assessed average parameters (density, dbh distribution, differences between habitat categories) of the oak population in the whole BNP preserve, and performed detailed analyses of local populations on three 26.5-ha and one 3.5-ha plots, representing eutrophic sites of deciduous forest (3) and a mesotrophic site of mixed forest (1). Based on the tree ring data, I reconstructed the historic dbh distribution back to 1750-1825. The results of the reconstruction confirm the early 1800s expert account and the 1889 forestry survey report. The high oak concentration in eutrophic habitats are legacies of either active game management (e.g., bison habitat improvement measures, supplementary feeding), forest recovery after the ban on forest industries (baking potash, tar, charcoal), or abandonment of inner small farms. The emergence of oak on poorer sites in the mid 1800s coincides with the ban on use of fire-a common practice that earlier had perpetuated the dominating position of fire-resistant pine. The present oak regeneration in declining spruce stands is a further step of the forest natural adaptation to environmental changes. The study supports the view that BNP is a remnant of an ecosystem substantially shaped by human uses. Modern forestry, as practiced in the managed part of the Białowie_ za forest, does not mimic either natural processes (as observed in BNP) or historic forest uses.