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these terraces and karst valleys literally on their backs,
carefully shaping them in harmony with the forces of
nature, building stone walls and fighting against erosion,
the
bura
wind, washing soil away, and drought.
Traditional agriculture and its most prominent branch,
sheep farming, has survived on the Kvarner islands up
to the present day, and contributed to the survival of the
last population of one of the most endangered European
birds – the Eurasian griffon vulture. The specific feature
of Kvarner’s population of vultures is that they nest on
the cliffs directly above the sea. The cliffs and rocks of
Kvarner’s islands are also home to endemic flora and
fauna – including the Istrian bluebell, prickly drypis,
rare Kvarner fern, Dalmatian knapweed, and some
endemic insects and snails.
On the other hand, some parts of the Kvarner islands
show their tamer, greener side. The natural reserve of
Dundo forest on the island of Rab is one of the most
beautiful and well-preserved natural evergreen holm
oak Mediterranean forests and is therefore definitely
worth visiting. Also worth mentioning are the wooded
areas of Tramuntana and Punta križa on the island
of Cres, while the forest parks of Čikat and Pod javori,
which emerged as a result of afforestation at the end of
the 19
th
century, make Lošinj one of the greenest islands
on Kvarner.
In the areas where human hand has left its traces, the
landscape was not destroyed but rather transformed
over centuries into marvellous rural areas suited to the
flourishing people, domestic animals and cultivated
plants. Some pearls are to be found in the immediate
vicinity of the human settlements, or even at the very
centre of some of the towns, like the unique dry-stone
walls (“gromače”) and olive groves of extraordinary
aesthetic value neatly folded into the landscape near
the town of Cres, or the – regrettably – today almost
abandoned “box-shaped” cultivated landscape of
vineyards bordered with dry-stone walls near Punat on
the island of Krk. There are many more such examples
of forgotten valuable areas on our islands – they just
need to be (re)discovered over and over again.