The article reviews the literature dealing with levels of air pollution in Central Europe and Czechoslovakia particulary in connection with the rate of forest damage and dieback since the fifties. To date 57 percent of forests on an area of 15.000 square km are damaged in Czech republic and more than 40.000 ha of dead Norway spruce forest had to be cut out. Deforested hills are vegetated mostly by Calamagrostis villosa only. The reforestation faces many obstacles of which the change of mezoclimate, the acidification and intoxication of the soil, the disappearance of mycorrhizal fungi and pressure of consumers may be named.