The development of uneven-aged forest management in the Dinaric region (north-west Balkans) is reviewed. Uneven-aged silviculture has been the major silvicultural system in the region since regular forest management began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Regular forest management in former virgin forest areas began as selection forest management mainly because of the awareness of the importance of multilayered continuous forest cover for preventing soil erosion on carbonate substrate. The observed period of more than 100 years has seen several changes to uneven-aged forest management ranging from the complete domination of rigid selection forest management to the gradual acceptance and eventual domination of the irregular shelterwood system and finally to the acceptance of freestyle forest management, which is presently practiced in the Slovenian part of the Dinaric region. Freestyle silviculture combines practices of different silvicultural systems. By using this system, consideration for site conditions and heterogeneous stand dynamics at small spatial scales is possible. In the observed period, some stand parameters of Dinaric forests have changed substantially. Growing stock has increased significantly, the number of large-diameter trees has increased and alternation of the main tree species (silver fir and European beech) has occurred. The development of uneven-aged forest management is described and its prospects are discussed.

We studied the effects of two types of selective thinning on beech stands formed by a shelterwood cut in 1910 — with lower number of crop trees and higher thinning intensity (T1) and higher number of crop trees with lower thinning intensity (T2). The stands were thinned in 1980, 1991 and 2001. Despite a lower stand density after thinning, the annual basal area increments of thinned stands in both thinning periods (1980–1991 and 1991–2002) were around 20% higher compared to those of the control (unthinned) stands. The mean annual basal area increment of dominant trees was 30–56% larger in the thinned plots compared to the control plots. Of 176 initial crop trees in the T1, 72% were chosen again during the last thinning. In the T2, 258 crop trees were chosen in the first thinning, and only 62% of these trees were chosen again during the last thinning. Only crown suppression and diameter classes of crop trees significantly influenced their basal area increment when diameter classes, crown size, crown suppression, and social status were tested. In the thinned stands, the dominant trees are more uniformly distributed if compared to the dominant trees in the control plots. Finally, the herbaceous cover and the species diversity were higher in the thinned plots.

Long-term dynamics of selection (plenter) forests and corresponding virgin forests in NW Balkan countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) were examined by assessing changes in diameter structure, stand volume and tree species composition. The parameters were aggregated at the landscape spatial scale, and the intensity of changes in diameter structure and tree species composition was measured by the index of dissimilarity. It was hypothesized that structure and composition of selection forests and virgin forests remained rather stable over several decades. Our study revealed pronounced dynamics in the observed parameters. However, these changes were divergent; in most study areas, increases of stand volume and large-diameter trees were observed, and in selection forests, the proportion of silver fir in the total stand volume decreased in three study areas and increased in two. Changes in diameter structure and tree species composition of the virgin forests were relatively less pronounced. In selection forests, an increasing proportion of mid-shade-tolerant Norway spruce and a constant proportion of light demanding sycamore, which is almost absent in virgin forests, were observed. The great capacity of the selection system to create stands of different structure and composition may be an important advantage in increasingly unpredictable economic, social and environmental conditions.