Stilianos Tampakis*, Paraskevi Karanikola, Evangelos
Manolas, and Polyxeni Zachou

Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources,
Democritus University of Thrace, Ath. Pantazidou 193, 68200, Orestiada, Greece.
*E-mail: stampaki@fmenr.duth.gr 

Lake Pamvotida is inseparably linked to the life and history of the inhabitants of the city of
Ioannina. This research records the views and beliefs of the inhabitants of the city of Ioannina with
regard to the lake. The majority of the citizens believe that Lake Pamvotida plays an important
role in their lives since the mere presence of the lake contributes to improving their psychology.
In addition, Lake Pamvotida contributes to the aesthetics of the city and helps with regard to
opportunities for recreation and sport. In general, the citizens declare satisfied from the quality of
their life. They also believe that if there are opportunities for them to stay in their homeland, they
will do so. It seems that 50 percent of the citizens do not wish to participate in public matters.
In addition, the percentage of citizens which do not participate in any environmental program
is significant. However, it is encouraging that the percentage of those who would participate
voluntarily in a lake protection program is quite big.

Vera Lavadinovic 1*, Zoran Miletic 1, Vukan Lavadinovic 2, and Zoran Poduska 1<

¹Institute of Forestry, Belgrade, Serbia. E-mail: veralava@eunet.rs
²Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany.

Erosion should be controlled with the programme of the National Strategy, which includes the
use of biotechnology and afforestation. Protective afforestation should primarily provide quick
establishment of plantation canopy. This prevents the direct influence of erosion agents on land
surface. The establishment of forest canopy simultaneously results in the establishment of full
hydrological function of forests, by reducing the probability of occurrence of surface runoff and
extending the period of water concentration from the basin to the channel. Douglas-fir, as a fastgrowing
species, meets all requirements, which should be met by a species used in protective afforestation.
Different Douglas-fir provenances under the same site and stand conditions in Serbia
do not use the habitat production potential in the same way, i.e. the rates of canopy establishment
are not the same in all Douglas-fir provenances. This means that the rate of establishing the protection
and hydrological functions of Douglas-fir plantations depends largely on the provenance.
In order to test the potential of fast-growing conifer Douglas-fir, experimental fields of this tree
species were founded in Serbia. The test represented a variety of provenance from the natural
range in North America. The insufficient research and the lack of reliability in the introduced tree
species result in the fact that exotic species are rarely applied in such circumstances, for fear of
their difficult adaptation to the changes of site conditions. To be able to meet the demands, the
planting material should be: adequately chosen, correctly selected species at the level of the
provenance, capable of providing the long-term stabilization of degradation processes, reproductively
invasive, widely adaptive, with developed root system, more effective, less expensive and,
of course, popular in the market. The paper presents the results of long term investigations of
Douglas-fir value for erosion control in Serbia.

Jeanette R. Williams 1,2* and Luben D. Dimov 2

¹United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 825 N Humboldt Ave,
  Willows, California 95988, USA. *E-mail: jeanettewilliams@fs.fed.us
²Forestry, Ecology, and Wildlife Program, PO Box 1927, Alabama A&M University, Normal,
  Alabama 35762 USA. E-mail: Luben.Dimov@aamu.edu

Invasive plant species are widely recognized as a serious environmental threat. They can
cause local extinction or a vast decline in some native species populations by increasing competition
and through modifications of their habitat. The currently used control measures commonly
involve herbicides that can be toxic to other plants, people, and wildlife. Some of the undesired
side effects include reduction of nutrients to non-target species, mortality in tadpoles, deformation
of fish, and reduced fertility and sexual development in frogs. There is a need for new methods for
invasive species removal that do not use herbicides, but whose efficiency is similar to that of herbicide-
based techniques. In this study we tested the effectiveness of high-intensity fire directed at
the base of the stem. We used external fuel source and applied the fire to royal paulownia trees to
examine the effects of tree diameter, length of time of fire application, and season of application.
Overall, greatest mortality occurred when the studied treatments were applied in the summer and
when the exposure to fire continued for 30 s in diameters from 3.8 cm to 20.1 cm and for 60 s in
diameters from 20.2 cm to 68.6 cm. The season of burning had no effect on sprouting. Post-burn
sprouting was greater following longer fire exposure. Additional treatment of the sprouts may be
necessary using this or other methods. Nevertheless, the percent of trees that sprouted was relatively
low. The tested treatment can be scaled up and its cost decreased by employing already
available flaming equipment currently used in agriculture.

Nasko Iliev*, Lyubka Varbeva, and Milko Milev

Department of Forestry, Faculty of Forestry, University of Forestry,
10 Kliment Ohridski Blvd., 1756 Sofia, Bulgaria. *E-mail: ilievnasko@abv.bg

In this study Sweet chestnut spring grafting onto same rootstocks has been made. Two-yearold
seedlings in the open field were used as rootstocks. Two phenological stages of the rootstocks
have been tested - dormancy condition (end of February) and the beginning of growing season
(end of March). The grafting methods were chip budding, cleft graft, side veneer graft and splice
graft. Criteria for assessment of the results were the percentage of grafting components union,
main shoot growth, lateral shoots number and growth. Significant differences in grafting success
and plant development were found in different phenological stages and in grafting methods. It was
mainly recommended to perform splice grafting during the spring using 'dormant' and 'active'
rootstocks. By splice grafting both graft success and growth of the scion (86.7 to 93.3 % graft
success and 23.7 to 26.2 cm graft shoot height) can be realized.

Yaoqi Zhang 1*, Elena Rafailova 2, and Anwar Hussain 3

¹School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, 602 Duncan Drive,
  Auburn, AL 36849-5418, USA. E-mail: zhangy3@auburn.edu
²University of Forestry, 10 Kliment Ohridski str., 1756 Sofia, Bulgaria.
  E-mail: erafailova@yahoo.com
³The Wilderness Society, 705 Christensen Drive, Anchorage, AK 99501, USA.
  E-mail: anwar_hussain@tws.org

Ecosystem services payment (ESP) is widely proposed as effective mechanism to internalize
externalities. Non-market valuation techniques are often used to measure ESP. Elaborating the
relationship between non-market valuation and ESP, this article emphasizes the importance of
property rights and opportunity costs for ESP arrangement. The Bulgarian private forest is used
as an example to highlight the potential impacts of changes in the institutional arrangement of
property rights on ESP and sustainability of Bulgarian private forestry and ecosystem services.