Montane zone

This comprises mountain slopes at the altitudinal range of 800 to 1,200 m (40 % of the territory's total area). The zone once contained dense mixed and mountain spruce forests, these undergoing considerable changes in recent centuries. As a result of mining, logging, glass-making and cabin homesteads, a large part of the mountain forest was cut down and replaced – particularly in the period associated with such mountain dwellings in the 17th to 19th centuries – by settled forestless mountain enclaves populated with herb-rich meadows of high species diversity.