Introduction

The Židlochovice Forest Enterprise is one of the directly managed forest enterprises of the Forests of the Czech Republic, State Enterprise. It covers 167, 000 hectares in the southern part of the South Morava Region. However, its forest coverage is only 15 per cent. Within the landscape which is subject to intensive farming forests have remained only in several complexes on soils which were not suitable for agricultural use. These include forests on airborne sands between the towns of Břeclav and Valtice, whose species composition includes Scots Pine, European Black Pine, Turkey Oak (Quercus ceris) and Robinia. In the hilly country around Diváky, Mikulov and Moravský Krumlov we can find mostly broad-leaved coppice forests with predominant English Oak and Sessile Oak with admixed Hornbeam and Linden. From the economic point of view as well as area-wise, the most important type of forests is represented by the floodplain forests preserved in the southern part of the Dyje-Svratka ravine and in belts along the Morava, Dyje, Svratka and Jihlava rivers. The area of these forests is 9,700 ha, which is 30 per cent of all floodplain forests in the Czech Republic.

The annual mean temperature is 9.1 °C, which makes it the highest in the Czech Republic. The mean annual precipitation is below 550 mm per year, which classifies the area of the Židlochovice Forest Enterprise as semi-arid. The highest point of the managed area is a peak of 550 m above sea level in the Pavlovské Hills. The lowest point is 150 m above sea level and is at the confluence of the Morava and Dyje rivers on the border of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria.

At present the Židlochovice Forest Enterprise has a two-level organizational structure made of the headquarters on the one level and individual forest districts (8) and production centres (2). The total annual cut is approximately 110,000 m3 of predominantly broadleaved timber and the annual forest regeneration is about 320 ha. The entire forest production and game keeping are managed by the forest enterprise itself.

A distinctive feature of the Židlochovice Forest Enterprise has traditionally been intensive game management. For many a hunter of trophy game and small game, both from the Czech Republic and abroad, the Židlochovice game keeping has become a synonym of professionalism and high quality.