Central Europe

Abstract

Austria and Switzerland have a long tradition of managing their forests, covering 45 and 28 per cent of their land surfaces respectively, for protection against soil erosion and avalanches; for the production of wood; and for recreation and landscape. Priorities vary, by law or by local consent, so that “protection without the commercial production of wood” is the sole object of management in some parts of the forested area. Elsewhere in the protection forests only a limited amount of harvesting is allowed, but here high costs have meant that harvesting essential to the long-term well-being of the forest has not been carried out in some forests and there is concern that the forests are losing their protection value.