Kocevje

Kočevje is where Europe's large predators survived. While bears, wolves, and lynx vanished from Western Europe, the forests of Kočevje remained dark and dense enough to shelter them. Today, 900 to 1,000 brown bears inhabit these woods—the westernmost population in Central Europe. Six of Slovenia's twelve primeval forest remnants lie within the municipality; the Krokar beech forest earned UNESCO World Heritage status in 2017.

This was always marginal land. The karst plateau offered water scarcity, poor fertility, and harsh climate. Slovenian settlement never took hold until the 14th century, when the Counts of Ortenburg recruited German farmers—the Gottscheerish—who created a linguistic and cultural island that survived for 600 years until World War II's disruptions scattered the community. Their villages now stand empty or abandoned in the forest.

The same conditions that deterred settlement preserved wilderness. When conservationist Leopold Hufnagel proposed leaving sections unmanaged in his 1892 forest plan, he was protecting what isolation had already maintained. Today, bear-watching tourism generates revenue from the forest's apex predators. The EU-funded LIFE Kočevsko project develops sustainable nature tourism while maintaining the wildness that makes tourism worthwhile.

By 2026, Kočevje will likely remain Slovenia's wilderness reserve—90% forested, lightly populated, economically dependent on a landscape that resists human density. The lesson: some places prosper by remaining uninviting. What seems like economic failure is ecological success.