Land properties under the management of the State Forests National Forest Holding in the Wielkopolskie Voivodeship

Abstract

The article presents the resources, their changes and spatial diversification of land managed by the State Forests National Forest Holding in the Wielkopolskie Voivodeship. The time scope adopted in the study covers the years 2002 and 2020. The research was conducted at voivodeship lev[1]el and by commune on the basis of materials provided by the Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography in Warsaw with the use of the indicator method. The study has shown that in 2020 the State Forests were second only to private farms in terms of the area covered. Their share in the total area of the voivodship is 23.7% and is the same as the national average. The land use structure is dominated by forests, and their acreage and share in the total area of the State Forests increased in the analyzed years. At the same time, their share is not spatially diversified. In many cities and communes, forests are the only-and in most of them predominant-form of land use. Half of the non-forest land area is occupied by agricultural land (50.3%), and one quarter by wasteland. Their share in the total resources of the State Forests in 2002–2020 shows a downward trend. Ecological land and mined land are characterized by an increase in the acreage. Nevertheless, their proportion is still small and does not exceed 0.3%. The above-mentioned forms of land use play a greater role in individual communes or in their small clusters, which results from their spatial dispersion and small areas. The general increase in the land resources of the State Forests observed in the voivodeship is spatially diversified. Apart from communes characterized by inconsiderable changes, there are units with a large increase in this type of land ownership, as well as those in which the resources have decreased or have not changed.