Social functions of forests in Poland

Humans are a part of nature and society. They tend to satisfy their needs that guarantee the existence by using natural and social richness. Forests represent a reservoir of the natural richness. They perform economic, ecological and social functions. The paper presents characterization of the social functions of forests, with particular focus on health function, recreation and tourism function, educational function and cultural function. With specific categories of forests, the scope of organizational and managerial activities conducted by forest authorities was presented as determining factors in performance of these functions. Furthermore, the focus was on the negative factors that affect forest environment and its functions.