Crossing the Internal Frontiers - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 174

the wolves; without them, the deer expand too greatly in numbers, and
the mountain loses all its vegetation. In the end the whole system collapses. 7
He says: 'Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the
wolf. Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it
is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land.' These
interconnections are true, though, of all lands, and are again something
that Leopold foresaw, echoing Thoreau's phrase of almost a century
earlier: 'In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in
the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.' 8
Leopold would feel at home in today's ancient beech and fir forests of
the Carpathian Mountains. These are home to the largest numbers of
wolves in Europe, and are testament to the principles of ecological balance
and diversity. The Carpathian range stretches 1500 kilometres in a giant
elbow from Austria in the west, via the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia,
Hungary and the Ukraine, and finally to Romania. About half of the area
is forest, and the rest flower-rich meadows and valley-floor farms. More
than half of the Carpathians are in Transilvania, the region of Romania
best known for the fictions of Dracula and werewolves. Today, these
Romanian forests contain red and roe deer, wild boar and chamois, and
Europe's largest concentration of carnivores - 5500 brown bears, 3000
wolves and 3000 lynx.
Walking through these grand forests, you would not know it, for the
predators are mostly mysterious. Some bears have become notorious
locally in the city of Brasov. In the Racadau neighbourhood, where harsh
tower blocks march in ranks to the forest's edge, habituated bears come
down to ransack the garbage on summer nights. Local people seem
habituated, too, watching calmly from just a few metres away. Some worry
that, one day, there will be a serious incident, and sentiment will turn
against the bears. When we walk the forest edge, as dusk falls and the heady
scent of resin is in the air, the bears seem no more than distant myths. In
local mythology, the forests are also special. They are a friendly hiding
place, a protection from enemies, and a part of everyone. Romanians have
a saying: 'The forest is our brother.' The Carpathians are still farmed as they
have been for centuries, with small valley farms, and livestock are herded
on the common mountain meadows for the whole of the summer. Each
year, shepherds lose a few sheep to bears and wolves, some 10 to 20 per
flock. To date, though, there has been reasonable balance, and shepherds
earn a living despite the dangers. The wolves keep down the numbers of
deer, without which the trees would suffer. Tree damage in Bavaria, where
there are no wolves, is ten times greater than in Transilvania.
There is something very significant about the Carpathians that goes
beyond the quirky behaviour of town bears or the distant howling of