Environmental Response to Marginality: Between Borderlands and Littoralization in the Eastern Adriatic

Abstract

Marginality as a concept and marginalization as a process are very complex. Among many various factors and conditions that may trigger the process of marginalization, the context(s) of the area is of primary importance. This chapter analyzes the environmental response to marginality in the Eastern Adriatic region in the course of the last two centuries. Several contexts are defined as fundamental for developing the process. The first one is the environmental context itself. The Eastern Adriatic is the area of Mediterranean karst with many constraints such as permeability of soil, scarcity of water, highly restricted and localized arable and workable land – and all that accompanied by regular summer drought. The second context is that of a borderland. It refers particularly to the area of the Dalmatian Hinterland which was from the time of the Early Middle Ages a borderland region. Constant changes of the border created insecurity in the area, which did not favor a sedentary lifestyle. Within the marginality context it is possible to define two groups of factors. Apart from the borderland position and Mediterranean karst environment defined as inner factors, there is the outer factor of littoralization in the (urban) littoral zone, carrier of the developmental flows and globalization influences. It acts like a pull factor (population inflow) for the already weakened and marginalized (depopulated) Dalmatian Hinterland or/and on the other side, the remote island belt. These processes led to considerable environmental change, mostly defined by extensification and reforestation, which also brought raised environmental risks, such as wildfires.KeywordsEastern AdriaticDalmatiaEnvironmental changeBorderlandKarstLittoralizationMarginality contextDepopulationExtensificationReforestation