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Volume XIII |

Assessing long-term changes in forest cover in the South West Development Region. Romania

Abstract: The paper is discussing the importance of assessing forest dynamics based on several statistical and cartographic supports considered to be the most representative for the last century. The selected maps are able to point out the forest cover changes for three time frames (1912-1971; 1971-1990; 1990-2006) related to the relevant multi-temporal statistical and cartographic data as well as historical events such as land reforms, political changes related to the transition to the intensive and extensive communist agriculture and the post-communist period strongly related to the decolectivisation and privatisation of agriculture leading to the emergence of new types of property, an excessive land fragmentation and deforestation (illegal logging). The authors are aiming to analyse land use conversion and forest covered areas dynamics in relation to the main socio-political and natural driving forces by means of GIS methods (binary change index and trend index) based on a series of significant cartographic documents and a large and complex geodatabase.

Volume XIII |

The role of Şarlota Park (Timiş County) in the colonisation of a new mammalian species – Fallow Deer (Dama dama L., 1758) in Romania

Abstract: Şarlota Park, located in Lipova Plateau, was founded between 1902 and 1904 at a distance of 42 km from the town of Timişoara. The aim was to create a hunting park, populated mainly with Fallow Deer. The first specimens, originating from the Habsburg Empire, were brought in animal trucks, colonised in the years 1904-1907, Şarlota railway station dating from 1896. As the species population grew to over 600 individuals, in the early 1950s specialists decided to have a number of specimens captured annually and colonise them in all of Romania`s provinces that offered similar environmental conditions. The animals were carried to the new sites in animal trucks and lorries. The captures (about 1,000 individuals) were made over 1942-1977, mostly between 1954 and 1970. The 73 transports resulted in the formation of 49 new populations of this species in Romania. It was the most outstanding action taken by the Romanian authorities to expand the area of a mammalian species.