ŠUME I DALMATINSKA EKONOMIJA U SPISIMA TROGIRSKIH FIZIOKRATA, PETRA NUTRIZIA GRISOGONA I IVANA LUKE GARAGNINA (XVIII./XIX. ST.)
FORESTS AND DALMATIAN ECONOMY IN THE WRITINGS OF TRGOGIR’S PHYSIOCRATS – PETAR NUTRIZIO GRISOGONO AND IVAN LUKA GARAGNIN (18TH / 19TH CENTURY)

Summary/Abstract: The destroyed forests were a general feature of the Dalmatian environment at the turn of the 18th century into 19th century. The main energy generator of the Dalmatian economy was still wood, and forests as the main source of wood raw material has been followed by strong deforestation for centuries. In this context, the issue of degraded forests and the problem of bad economic conditions in Dalmatia will become one of the central themes in the debate on the reform and reviving of Dalmatian economy. The idea of protecting and restoring the forests of Dalmatia as a necessary prerequisite for economic reform was created and promoted within the physiocracy movement in Dalmatia and is considered a very rare idea in the context of considering economic sector reforms and the concepts of an economy based on agriculture and trade. In the circumstances of the neglected and lagging economy in Dalmatia, it can be linked with the echo of positive examples of the agrarian sector in the Apennine Peninsula and the negative consequences that the process of deforestation and hydrogeological disasters have inflicted on agriculture. Together with Bajamonti, Banovec, Stratika, the reforestation of Dalmatia was also promoted by Trogir’s physiocrats Petar Nutrizio Grisogono and Ivan Luka Garagnin. This idea was promoted by Petar Nutrizio Grisogono as a fervent supporter of the systematic reforestation of Dalmatia and strict measures of forest protection. Ivan Luka Garagnin advocated free trade of land, private ownership and the market value of forest resources as the only reliable guarantors of launching positive trends in Dalmatian agriculture and economy. Still, the ethatist logic was inconsistent with any »physiocracy liberalism« and promoted forest restoration in the horizon of the colonial system and ancien régime. In the context of Trogir, the plan for reforestation and protection of forests perfectly fit into the French and Austrian plans for the building of military ports and shipyards in the newly-acquired territories. Although the proposed projects only partially yielded fruit, the abolition of the Grimani law and the adoption of Napoleon’s agricultural law, as well as the 1808 and 1811 Forest decrees, responded to some of the proposals submitted at the legal level.

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