Management and Supervision of the Forests in Tyrol

Management and supervision of the forests in Tyrol.

Meran, July. The political and judicial constitution, the educational and municipal systems, agriculture, and many other branches of our public life are facing significant changes, of which we confidently hope that they will prove to be as many improvements. Amidst the active endeavor toward the timely reshaping of obsolete and detrimental institutions, it is surely the duty of patriots to draw attention to a public affliction that cannot be considered carefully enough in Tyrol as a high-mountain land; we mean the management and supervision of the forests. Although it goes without saying that without a well-regulated and effective forestry administration system the land must gradually be deprived of its protection against the elements, of its ornament promoting health and fertility, and surrendered to desolation and debris flows, this conviction has nevertheless never penetrated deeply into the minds of our administration. Witness to this are the old forest ordinances, the separation of the forestry administration from the mining and domain (Chamber) administration, the deficiency of forest law and police provisions, and the inadequacy of the protective personnel. In earlier times, the fate of our forests and thus indirectly the material welfare of the land depended on the arbitrariness of the Salzmaier and officials in Hall, as well as the organs of the Oberstjägermeisteramt. The Italian and Bavarian interim governments had no opportunity to initiate reforms in forestry, the thriving of which requires a series of peaceful years, and when the land returned to Austria, the mining authorities succeeded in restoring the old disorder on the basis of the Ferdinandine mining and Leopoldine forest ordinances, according to which all forest property is by law an exclusive estate of the sovereign, which no one may acquire unless through a sovereign grant documented with deed and seal.

From the year 1814 to 1822, forestry was carried on haphazardly without any instruction; strictly speaking, there was no forestry personnel present for the sake of the forests, but only either saltworks and mining officials who sought out the forest areas most suitable for logging for state operations and collected the sovereign forest dues, or municipal forest guards who exercised favor and disfavor according to personal considerations.

In 1822, the provincial Gubernium obtained separate forestry directives from the general Hofkammer; however, a good part of them never became generally valid, because the jealousy of the political and financial court offices recognized the directives merely as a one-sided instruction. No forestry personnel organized and acting according to uniform principles was appointed, no forest surveying, yield estimation, or economic regulations were undertaken, and even the delimitation of the state forests was omitted.

Later, out of a cameralist pursuit of increased forestry revenue, a system of the most comprehensive reclamation of forest rights for the Treasury began, which, by jeopardizing the ancient forest ownership of municipalities and private individuals, led to resistance and the consequence that no one spared the uncertain forest stands any longer. Thus, this unblest dispute over forest rights brought denudation and desolation to the Tyrolean forests, especially in the districts bordering Italy, to the same extent as the timber export trade was favored and promoted.

Finally, the government recognized the necessity of prompt relief; the Estates had raised their voices with emphasis, and Emperor Ferdinand made the pronouncement on February 6, 1847, that apart from the forests reserved for mining in certain parts of the land and some domain forests, he renounced all other forest property in favor of the municipalities. Although the harmful contentious relationship regarding forest law was thereby resolved, the so necessary improvement in the organization of the administration and protection of the forests has hitherto been neglected.

We still have the former, separated saltworks and domain forestry offices that proceed according to no uniform principle; their officials cling to the previously habitual bureaucratic routine of paper-pushing and office duties; the forests are devastated without rules, law, or reason by municipal representatives and private individuals; indeed, as if in mockery and renunciation of all effectiveness of the forestry offices, so-called forestry assemblies (Forsttagsatzungen) are held annually, during which the forestry official frequently renders himself pitiable and ridiculous in the presence of many community members through his ignorance of the location, size, boundaries, and yield of the forests.

It is thus hardly surprising that the peasants immediately treat the forests according to their momentary interest, and care as little about forest policing and forestry management as they do about the forestry officials.

The sad consequences are not lacking. Every spring and autumn brings along the Inn and the Adige larger and more damaging floods; avalanche tracks and landslides appear yearly; rockfalls and mudflows fill the valley gorges, and the torrents carry the weathered, dislodged masses of debris and earth into the riverbeds, which thereby continuously rise, can no longer hold the normal quantity of water, and gradually ruin the valley plains into unavoidable swamplands.

Remedies must finally be found against such sad consequences. This can only be achieved through one comprehensive public institution for forestry management and protection for the whole of Tyrol. May the relevant ministry lend a favorable ear to this truthful portrayal!

(Lld.)