Forest management and landscape history: exploitation of Scarus oak forest in Lefkada (Santa-Maura) island under Venetian and British rule (eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century)

ABSTRACT A compilation of documents, mainly from the Venetian and British occupation periods (eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century), concerning the once thriving Scarus oak forest, is kept in the historical archive of Lefkada island. The record is a source of historical toponyms many of which were preserved in the rich cartographic and cadastral material created by the Venetians while it also holds an inventory of the forest ordered by the British administration. Valuable information is given on the management methods and policies implemented by the Venetian and British administration in order to control exploitation of the forest by the local population and harvest its different products acorns, dye and naval timber. The harsh protection measures implemented prohibited farming and stock breeding by the local peasants and villagers who were actually allowed to collect wood and forest products to meet their needs. The archive indirectly reveals a severe episode of oak forest decline that took place in the early nineteenth century. Driven by climate and extended uncontrolled wood cutting it set the foundations for the irreversible landscape conversion of modern times. Today, despite its size reduction, a significant part of the mountain top can be recognised as an oak silvopastoral system of great historical and cultural value.