engleski

Environmental Response to Marginality: Dalmatian Karst Hinterland between Changing Borders and Littoralization

The Dalmatian hinterland is a typical karst area. Karst as living environment is marked primarily by the soil permeability with very few spatially localized watertight zones. Mediterranean and submediterranean climate features with regular and even severe summer drought add to the overall water famine. In such environment, pastoralism appears as the most adaptable subsistence economy and lifestyle over the centuries. However, pastoralism in the Mediterranean karst environment can easily leads to degradation of vegetation i.e. process of deforestation. Environmental change in the Dalmatian hinterland is significantly marked by its specific spatial and temporal position between the borderland, with frequent border changes throughout the history, and the process and zone of litoralization at the other side. Karst environment and its limitations in terms of economy, together with its position between the borderland and litoralization zone, gave a character of marginality to the Dalmatian hinterland. In the 18th century, after the border stabilization between Venetian Republic and Ottoman Empire on the territory of Dalmatian hinterland, the marginal region gained strategic importance. The Venetian Republic fostered colonization, settlement and agriculture by a number of documents of land assignment and land use conditions (investitures) in order to fortify the newly acquired territory. Consequently, narratives and graphic sources of the time have documented well the environmental response to population number and cattle increase. Deforestation is the general feature of the 18th century Dalmatian hinterland. The second half of the 20th century brought a turn in the man-environment relations .The Dalmatian hinterland with its traditional livelihood was strongly affected by the litoralization processes. Primarily, that means the depopulation and even exodus to the growing littoral centers. Depopulation also means reducing the environmental pressure. Depopulation, land abandonment and dissolving the traditional livelihood, based primarily on pastoralism and limited tillage zones, induced the corresponding environmental response in terms of natural process of vegetation succession and re-afforestation. The aim of the presentation is to point out to different types of environmental response and change developed after the process of accentuated marginalization of the Dalmatian hinterland due to the litoralization process.

Dalmatia; Hinterland; Karst; Litoralization; Pastoralism; Afforestation

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