Deforestation and Reforestation Attempts of the Military Frontier’s Coastal Dinaric Karst (1762–1881), Croatia

The Dinaric Karst is the dominant landscape of the eastern Adriatic coast that was under the administration of the Habsburg Military Frontier. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the forests located on the coast of the Military Frontier came under increased pressure from the local population and the Habsburg authorities. This, in cooperation with harsh environmental conditions and their impacts (wind, rainfall, soil erosion), contributed to the accelerated deforestation of the Dinaric Karst forests. The process is most visible in the narrow coastal strip squeezed between the Adriatic Sea and the Velebit and Kapela mountains. Even today, their slopes show a distinct difference in forest areas—the east-facing slope in the region of Lika is characterized by rich and dense forests, while the western slope, impoverished and barren, is primarily covered with low vegetation, and rare forest patches. This article deals both with the deforestation of the coastal Dinaric Karst in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century and with attempts at reforestation in the second half of the nineteenth century. The period of deforestation was marked by the unsustainable forest management by the local population, which was affected by poverty and poor infrastructure caused by the difficult Dinaric Karst environment, with simultaneous attempts by the state to impose its control over the forests, with the idea of economic exploitation of their resources. The second half of the nineteenth century was the time of the beginnings of organized reforestation in that area, but also in the whole of Croatia.