You can see solitary trees scattered here and there in this moonlike landscape. Or a bit of a lush greenery near the houses or near the water. But most of the islands in Kornati are just treeless.
Even though it is hard to imagine this, Kornati used to be covered with woods. Numerous limepits scattered through these islands, some of which orginate from the Roman times, still testify this. In the middle of 19th century the biggest island Kornat was set on fire and the fire went on for 40 days. After that, the vegetation never renewed itself due to cattle breeding.
In order to get the fresh pasture for their cattle, shepherds used to revive the pastures by setting them on fire every few years. Only few plants were able to endure this kind of treatment.
Out of all islands in Croatia, Kornati archipelago has the poorest flora (only 150 species of plants). Once the cattle breeding is gone, Kornati will become green again.
