Data to the landscape history of the wooded pasture between Pénzesgyőr and Hárskút

Abstract

A wooded pastutre (with old seed trees) is a highly complex and diverse method of land or landscape management, having a great importance in the past management systems. Man of the previous times made forests and landscape to be livable for him by creating wooded pastures, and created a relative balance bewteen himself and nature, thus, in favour of understanding their role in the land use system, observing their past is indispensable. Past of the observed area was studied by the means of historical written and map sources, data of archives and information collected through interviews. However, less and less time is available because of degradation of the area. Grazing and in parallel regular caring for the pasture (that had been created cca. 100 years ago) were abandoned about 15 years ago, resulting in a massive growth in the covering rate of shrubs and young trees on the pasture. Rate of open grassy areas does not exceed even 20% for this time, thus, only huge trees remained on the area are witnesses of the one-time history of the pasture. Speed of succession and changes in shrubbyness were observed by analysing aerial photographs, so thus it could be established that the time remained for reconstructing the area or for further researches could be not more than 10 years, and by passing it, without any intervention, the destiny of this wooded pasture will be the same as in case of several ten or hundred other wooded pastures in Hungary: sinking into oblivion.