Protecting trees through an inventory and typology: Heritage trees in the Karavanke Mountains, Slovenia

Both research and policy require a transparent approach to monitoring and managing natural and cultural heritage because landscape quality has become a key concept in landscape planning. This paper introduces an advanced approach to natural and cultural heritage inventory for the study of heritage trees. Because trees play different roles in society, different regulations apply to their preservation, which can lead to inconsistencies in records for heritages trees. The inventory of heritage trees and their types in the study area identified within the Karavanke Natura 2000 project, which is presented in this paper, is based on existing lists of heritage trees, fieldwork, and interviews. A new database of heritage trees has been established in which the advantage of geographical information systems unifying various data sources is emphasized