THE ROLE OF FOREST ROADS FOR MANY PURPOSES

Forest roads with their multifunctional role (ecological, productive, social, relaxing, scenery, etc.), in order of achieving the necessary effectiveness, require a sustainable, long-term maintenance, as well as opening new road paths, throughout their attainability with the road infrastructure. Amongst evaluated instruments, in the current forestry practice, considered as the “key” to road opening of forests, which provide access to their inland, for people and working machinery, are as follows: treatment with complex silvo-technical activities, including harvest activities, implementation of prevention and protection measures against sicknesses, perpetrators and fires, not mentioning their use for other purposes, other than of the forestry nature, such as: connection of rural areas, tourism purposes, etc. Expansion of road arteries in forests corresponds to finding a solution for the complex problem, concluding the set of services to be applied, from the field of road infrastructure, referring to three classes of forest services, out of motorways. Precisely, the purpose of a study, carried out some time ago, is to find a perspective solution for the forests in Kosovo, according to a contemporary methodology, oriented towards main indicators of forest resources of Kosovo, especially to the characteristics of forest groups and the actual state of road network within, characteristics of forest terrains (inclination, configuration, etc.); recommended silvo-technical activities (treatments, forestry measures etc).Methodological operation, followed by field operation, is based on the synthetic indicator of “density” (ml/ha), the optimal value of which aims that the total expenses for each unit of wood product (leke/m3), profited by the forests, are at their minimum value, and following the determination of which, we shall continue with other more optimal solutions of expansion of new road networks.