Abstract

Forestry Law does not constitute an autonomous branch of law – it is in fact most commonly percieved as part of the environmental law. However, this does not mean, that it is impossible to extract general principles of the Forest Law. The Forest Act contains a catalogue of explicitly formulated general principles of forest management, which at the same time are the principles of forest law. Furthermore, it is possible to reconstruct some additional general principles from specific provisions of the Forest Act, as well as to indicate those of the principles of the environmental law, which may be extended to forestry regulations. The aim of this paper is therefore to formulate and analyse the general principles: (1) expressly articulated by the legislature; (2) possible to reconstruct from the detailed provisions of the Forest Act; (3) of the environmental law, which can be applied to forestry regulations. The result of the survey is a more extensive catalogue of general principles of forest law in directive-descriptive terms, which may contribute to the extension of the autonomy of the forest law.

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