On 31st of March, we travel to Slovenia and visit Slovenia Forest Service (SFS Regional Unit Kočevje), and diferent companies.
First one, Melamin was established in 1954 and currently employs a staff of nearly 200. It is a joint-stock company, subdivided into three manufacturing divisions: Chemical Industry Division, Wood Industry Division and Footwear Industry Division.
In the field of energy, Komunala Kočevje has a 30-year tradition. In 1985, she began managing most of the then social boiler rooms and the then hot water network. Intensive development in this area began with the adoption of the Energy Concept of the City of Kočevje in the late 1990s. Due to the richness of wood in Kočevje, in 2002 the decision to build a boiler on wood biomass was dropped as the main source of heat supply for the city of Kočevje. The boiler room was built together with a single hot water system in 2005. According to experts, this is the most successful wood biomass heating project in Slovenia.
Kočevski les works to implement all activities of the Strategic Plan to promote the competitiveness of the forest-wood chain in Kočevsko, which can be read in full les-Strategic dokument. Among the objectives of the company is to promote participation in forestry and wood processing activities in such a way that wood as a kočevska strategic raw material and owned by the Municipality of Kočevje is also processed as much as possible in Kočevje – into semi-finished products and finished products with the highest added value.
Visit to the primary forest
The Rajhenav virgin forest in Kočevski Rog is approximately 50 ha large virgin forest which has been over a century excluded from the management operations. The prevailing community of fir and beech tree (Abieti-Fagetum dinaricum) is present in mosaic patterns in several sub-communities and in different development phases. The special features of the virgin forest include the growing stock, mighty trees, many dead and fallen trees, some rare bird species and finally a variegated community of fungi and small animals decomposing dead wood.
Not far from the Rajhenav virgin forest there stands a fir tree called the Queen of Rog which is with its 51 meters in height considered as one of the most magnificent firs in Slovenia. There are several similarly striking giants growing nearby. A fir can live even for five hundred years in this kind of conditions. The Kočevje forests are a part of the largest single complex of forests in Europe, extending from the Trnovo forest to Gorski Kotar in Croatia. The virgin forest can be admired by following: The Roška pešpot hiking trail and hiking trails through Kočevski Rog.
