ORESTRY SECTOR IN THE SERVICE OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SERBIA

Abstract

Forestry is an important branch of economy in Serbia. Its development varied throughout history or more precisely, through the nineteenth and twentieth century, considering social circumstances which more or less affected the use of this natural resource. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, accord- ing to some travel reports, the forests covered 75-80 % of Serbia. However, the percentage decreased dur- ing the 1950s to mere 21.4 %. Forests were affected by crisis during the war and the post-war recovery period. Throughout the entire nineteenth century the population grew as well as the need for agricultural land, which led to the ruthless usage and burning of the forests. During the nineteenth century almost a million hectares of forests disappeared in Serbia. Simultaneously, forests were being overtaken and dur- ing many decades they were acknowledged as property. The process continued more or less extensively almost to the middle of the twentieth century when the reverse process started and the forests were natio- nalized over the permitted maximum.

All these processes, according to the information from the National Forest Inventory (2009), led to 29.1 % of forest cover in Serbia nowadays. 53 % are state forests and 47 % are private property.

As parts of restructuring economy in Serbia, as well as restructuring forestry, there have been two main incompetent personnel manage forests. The second problem is with private forests where there is no organized approach to their usage, as a consequence of the owners' (dis)interest in their own property. The owners of the private forests managed them how they wanted or how they had to. These problems are further complicated by the facts that the average cadastral lots (parcels) in private possession are under

0.3 hectares, migration from rural to urban areas, unsolved property relations etc.

The state should recognize its interests and use the stimulative methods to develop private man- agement in forestry in order to boost economic development of rural areas and stop depopulation of this region.