Silvicultural Regimes in the Cause and Effect Relationships of the Forest-Damage Situation in Central Europe

"New forest damages", often attributed to air-borne pollutants, are a complex, multi-cause process in which current silvicultural regimes have a decisive role. The treatment of stands has changed considerably in the time during which agrarian societies have developed into industrializing and post-industrialized welfare ones, and the commodity and timber production functions of the forest have changed to protective and social functions. On the side of forest management, economic success has become a secondary criterion next to protection and social values. As a consequence, tree stands have become denser and older. Under the glooming threat of pollution, the preservation principle, with an aim to preserve stands at full density and postpone the regeneration felling as far as possible, is becoming more and more popular. In over-dense and -mature stands, increasing numbers of trees lose their vitality and die under the stress of insects, diseases, and pollutants. Forest managers cannot directly decrease the load of pollutants. But they can keep their forests young and give the trees enough growing space to be as resistant as possible to pollutants and other causes of death