World Forest Day is celebrated every year on March 21st. The importance of forests for the survival of life on earth is manifold. Forests are the habitats of numerous species, they play an important role in the filtration of drinking water, they use CO2 and release oxygen, they moderate climatic extremes, etc.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s forest coverage is high and amounts to about 60%. Forests and forest communities are made up of one (pure stands) or more tree species (mixed stands). Depending on the climatic and orographic influences, we have a horizontal and vertical distribution of forest vegetation in BiH, so we have: holm oak forests, downy oak and hornbeam forests, sessile oak and hornbeam forests, Hungarian oak and Turkish oak forests, beech and fir forests with spruce, subalpine beech forests or spruce and mountain pine
The species richness of an area is also reflected in the presence of relict and endemic species, and in BiH we also have forest communities made up of these species: Bosnian pine forests (Tertiary relict) and the very special phytocenosis of Pančić’s spruce.
Pančić’s spruce is, according to some, the most beautiful woody species in Europe – with its distinctly slender and narrow crown. This is a woody species that survived the Ice Age by hiding in the harsh habitats of the middle reaches of the Drina River. We say that it is the oldest European tree species, and the last to be discovered (thanks to the efforts of our great researcher Josif Pančić).
The Center for Environment as a partner organisation participates in a three-year project supported by the Franklinia Foundation “Support for the restoration and conservation of the oldest European tree species (Picea omorika (Panč.) Purkinye) with the aim of preserving this valuable forest woody species.”
The pressures on forests are great: from climate change with increasingly frequent climatic extremes (which last year led to fires that destroyed a large part of stable stands of Pančić’s spruce), over the high demand for wood as a raw material, all the way to illegal logging and forest theft.
