How does recent vegetation reflects previous systems of forest management?

It is known that historical coppicing could lead to developing thermophilous oak forests (habitat 91I0 according to NATURA 2000, in Kwiatkowski 2004), but this management system is recently unknown in Poland. In this paper we present the results of researching the historical documentation considering past methods of forest management in Sudety Mountains foothills (Silesia, Poland, Central Europe). Results of this research show that coppicing was most popular in the period ca 1835–1890, and focused on production of high quality oak tanbark (mirror tanbark). In the end of 19th century the area of coppiced forest for tanbark production was assessed at 16,000 ha. The decline of financial efficiency of this production led to conversion of coppiced forest into high forests, applying coppice-with-standard systems as transient kind of management. The historical knowledge suggests that thermophilous oak forest vegetation, observed recently in Sudety Mts. foothills, can be considered as an effect of past forest management and also necessity of active management in order to maintain this habitat.