Where is carpathia

Most of the fauna consists of species typical of the Central European forests, and they can be found in the higher and the lower regions of the Carpathians; these include the brown bear and wildcat both rare now , red deer , roe deer , wolf , fox , forest marten, ermine, Carpathian squirrel, dormouse, mole, and bat.

Among the common birds are the berkut eagle , hawk, owl , woodcock, black stork , rock pupit, and white-throated blackbird. Many of the birds visit the Carpathians only in summer. There are quite a few species of amphibians and reptiles, particularly on the southern slopes, including the Carpathian newt, western bullfrog, spotted salamander, and smooth snake. Mink and otter reach the high regions by means of streams. The mountain streams contain trout , grayling, and Balkan barbel Barbus meridionalis.

A network of national parks and nature reserves see Carpathian protected areas has been established with the aim of protecting the biological and landscape diversity of the Ukrainian Carpathians. All of the eastern Carpathians are Ukrainian ethnic territory except for the Low Beskyd, where, until , Ukrainians occupied only a narrow strip on both sides of the watershed known as the Lemko region.

Thereafter the Lemkos who lived in Poland were resettled, and only the Lemkos in Czechoslovakia were left in their homeland. The ethnic boundaries between the Ukrainians and other nationalities in the Carpathians are fairly distinct, except in the case of the Slovaks. The mountains did not attract foreigners; hence, non-Ukrainians are few. Until the beginning of the s the Jews were the largest minority 10 percent , while the Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians , Czechs , Poles , and Germans together accounted for 12 percent of the population.

The Ukrainian highlanders are divided into several ethnographic groups: the Lemkos , in the Low Beskyd and the western part of the Middle Beskyd almost all of them were resettled by the Polish authorities ; the Boikos, up to the Bystrytsia Solotvynska River in the east; and the Hutsuls in the east. The central part of Transcarpathia is settled by the Zahoriany tramontanes or Dolyniany lowlanders , who are related to the Boikos and speak a central Transcarpathian dialect.

There are two forms of settlement and farming in the Carpathians, and they appear to be independent of the natural environment. The first is the Hutsul form; the second is practiced by all other highlanders. The Lemkos , Boikos, and Zahoriany are basically agricultural people.

They cleared the forests to obtain arable land and built their elongated villages in the valleys. Their settlements are at low altitudes. The basic occupation of the Hutsuls is animal husbandry. Their land is used for pastures and hayfields. Their homesteads are attached to their fields; hence, their settlements are scattered and extend to considerable altitudes. The distribution of the population and farm lots depends mostly on natural conditions.

The lower, gently sloped areas have been deforested and settled. The higher and steeper areas remain forested or covered with meadows. The longitudinal valleys and lower strips are settled; the higher strips are not. Transverse valleys are important communication links but are not heavily populated.

The Middle Carpathian Depression, except for its central, elevated part; the Middle Beskyd , with its densely populated valleys and longitudinal forested ridges; and the Low Beskyd , with islands of forest one-third of the area and unpopulated land, are regions of moderate population density.

About one-half of the area of the Ukrainian Carpathians is unpopulated. The Volcanic Ukrainian Carpathians are also unsettled. For more detail see the accompanying table , both based on —30 data, which, except for those for the Lemko region , are still valid.

Almost 30 percent of the population lives in towns that are located at the intersection of longitudinal and transverse highways. There are only small towns in the mountains, the largest of them being Sianik and Turka. These towns are industrial, trade, and administration centers. The upper boundary of permanent settlement coincides usually with the upper limit of grain growing.

Both rise as the mountains become more massive, but they also depend on the form of settlement and farming. On the southern slopes of the Carpathians, where corn is grown, the boundary dips below m. It rises above 1, m only in the Hutsul region. Seasonal settlements exist at much higher altitudes. These are used only in the summer, when sheep and cattle are pastured in the remote mountain meadows. Only non-dairy cattle and horses are pastured in the meadows of the High Beskyd and Rivna.

Herding is widely practiced in the Polonynian Beskyd , the Gorgany Mountains , and the Hutsul region: in the s it involved about 5, herders, 9, horses, 55, head of cattle including 8, cows , and , sheep and goats, which amounted to almost one-quarter of all cattle and two-thirds of all sheep in the Carpathians.

The pasturing season lasts two and one-half to four and one-half months. It is extended even beyond this duration, especially in the Hutsul region , by the feeding of sheep in winter enclosures zymarky until the hay runs out. Herding in the meadows was generally backward, particularly in Galicia and Bukovyna. Under the Soviet regime the old forms of pastoral life were disappearing; only pastoral artels existed.

Economic activity in the Carpathians was determined by the natural environment, folk customs , tribal relations, and the economic policies of the governments that had control of the region. As in the past the economy today is based on farming, which is closely associated with animal husbandry, and on the forest industry.

Compared to that of neighboring plateau regions, the economy of the Carpathians is backward and quite primitive. Agriculture plays a greater role in the economy of the Lemko region and Boiko region. Yet, even here the production is insufficient to feed the population. Much of the arable land is left fallow. In the Boiko region the more elevated fields are fertilized by means of sheep grazing.

Traces of the tree-clearing system of farming can still be found. The main crops are potato and oats, which until the beginning of the 20th century was the main bread-baking grain. In the lower parts rye and wheat are grown, and corn is the main crop on the southern slopes. Much animal feed is produced. The trend is to grow more potatoes and feed and less oats. The fertility of the soil is low.

In the 19th century animal husbandry specialized in non-dairy cattle raising in the Lemko region and Boiko region and dairy cattle in the Hutsul region, where sheep raising and horse breeding of the famous Hutsul horse were well developed.

Since the second half of the 19th century these differences between the various regions of the Carpathians have diminished somewhat. As a result of the impoverishment of the peasantry , horse raising replaced ox raising, since the horse was useful in lumbering. Sheep raising declined in the western areas. In the s the structure of animal husbandry in the Carpathians was as follows proportion of the Ukrainian SSR production in parentheses : cattle, 80 percent The per capita supply of domestic animals is somewhat higher here than in other parts of Ukraine.

The forest , which for centuries supplied the highlander with food berries , mushrooms, animals , pasture , fuel, and materials and energy for small-scale industries, became the main source of exports and a very important economic factor in the second half of the 19th century. The exploitation of the Carpathian forests intensified at the end of the 19th century when a network of narrow-gauge railroads was built to transport lumber from remote mountain areas.

Because of inadequate protective measures, the forests have sometimes been excessively exploited, particularly under the Soviet regime. Although the Carpathian Mountains possess only 22 percent of Ukraine's forests, in the s they yielded over 60 percent of the lumber produced in Soviet Ukraine. Today young forests and deforested areas constitute over 50 percent of the forest land, while mature forests account for scarcely 11 percent instead of the expected 25 percent.

Reforestation measures are inadequate. In the Gorgany Mountains alone, 1, ha of rocky slope have appeared.

Floods have increased, and the importance of the mountains as a source of moisture has declined. Industry in the Carpathians is insignificant. The hydroelectric resources of the mountains are unused.

The Tereblia-Rika Hydroelectric Station is the only large hydroelectric station in the region. Larger hydroelectric plants can be found in Transcarpathia. In Galicia the woodworking industry is located at some distance from the mountains, in Subcarpathia. Salt is mined in Galicia at the foot of the mountains—in Dobromyl, Deliatyn , and Kosiv. In Transcarpathia a huge salt field is being developed at Solotvyna.

The Carpathians are a source of valuable building materials: andesites, basalts, rhyolites, tufas, and marble in the Volcanic Ukrainian Carpathians and hard sandstone in other regions. The petroleum industry, located at the foot of the mountains, has a national importance.

The Carpathian Mountains and its foothills are a source of thermal and mineral waters, one-third of which belongs to Romania. Several plains surround the Carpathians including the Galician Plain in the northeast; the Pannonian Plain in the southwest and the Lower Danubian Plain in the south. The Carpathians experience a relatively cool and humid climate. The Carpathian Mountain range comprises more than one-third of all the floral species in Europe and is rich in endemic and rare plant species.

The European yew, mountain pine, and stone pine are some of the rare plants that are found here. It has been estimated that about , hectares of virgin forest in Europe are found in Romania, which is the second-largest untouched forest in the world after Russia. Land abandonment, habitat conversion and fragmentation, deforestation, unsustainable forestry and agricultural practices and pollution are resulting in the loss of the Carpathian landscape and biodiversity.

The main drivers for this are socio-economic developments and climate change. Land abandonment and habitat loss are most significant in remote areas at higher altitudes where traditional farming cannot compete with modern agriculture. Habitat conversion and fragmentation are mostly related to unsustainable tourism and infrastructure development while agriculture is the main source for the pollution of surface and groundwater.

Climate change, causing changes in precipitation patterns, snow cover and temperature, intensifies the processes described above.