“Floodplain Forest of the Morava and Dyje Rivers”

The area of South Moravian floodplain forests represents the largest ecosystem of the highest species diversity in the Czech Republic and possibly within the entire Central Europe. It rightfully draws the attention of local inhabitants, tourists and specialists of different fields alike. In recent years, massive pressure has been put on Forests of the Czech Republic, State Enterprise, to achieve radical change in floodplain forest management and to give absolute preference to management systems which are guided largely by individual preferences of certain field specialists. However, we must question whether these efforts take into account the entire context connected with the origin and existence of this de facto “man-made” ecosystem. Are we capable of understanding the complex cultural value of floodplain landscape? These and many other questions are answered in the clearly arranged publication written by selected leading specialists who allow us to view the issue of floodplain forests from the perspective of different landscape professions and experts.

We attempted to provide clearly organized information from different fields on the largest floodplain forest complex in the Czech Republic, to promote sustainable management of these forests and to outline major trends in cultural landscape management and sustainable management of natural resources. These include the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme, Seville Strategy and Madrid Action Plan for the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, as well as the global programme Model Forest or the European Landscape Convention.

The Czech-English publication is to employ the strategy of positive campaign to promote the sustainable forest management of floodplain forests. The project is a follow-up to a popular book “Floodplain Forests in the Dyje-Morava Alluvium” published earlier (Moraviapress, 2004), whose Czech version has been out of print for several years.

The project was funded by Forests of the Czech Republic, State Enterprise.