The Žumberak Mountains (Croatian: Žumberačka gora is a range of hills and mountains in northwestern Croatia and southeastern Slovenia, extending from the southwest to the northeast between the Krka and the Kupa.
It covers an area of 430 km2.The geographically unified massif consists of two parts, separated by the Bregana and Žumberak rivers (Croatian: Žumberačka rijeka). The northeastern part is the Samobor Hills (Croatian: Samoborsko gorje) with the foothills. The central and western part is named Žumberak Hills (Croatian: Žumberačko gorje, Žumberak). Its northwesternmost part, named Gorjanci, lies in Slovenia. The highest peak of the range is Sveta Gera (Trdina Peak) on the border between Croatia and Slovenia, being 1,178 m (3,865 ft) high.
Since 1999, an area of the range in Croatia has been protected as the nature park Žumberak–Samobor Hills.
For the most part, Žumberak Mountains are protected by the Natura 2000 network, an ecological network of the European Union consisting of natural habitat types and habitats of wild species of interest to the European Union. According to Natura 2000, 14 habitat types and 45 important species of flora and fauna are protected in Žumberak.
The area is covered by spacious forest complexes, mostly state-owned, managed by the state company Hrvatske šume d.o.o.
The analysis of the systematic devastation of Žumberak forests, which we carried out intensively during 2019, established that in the period from 2009 to 2019 they were cut down, or felling is in progress on a total of 1,115 ha.
By re-examining new terrains within the Nature Park, during 2020 and 2021, we discovered forest devastation in an additional 44 fields with a total area of about 400 ha, which together with previous observations is about 1,500 ha (or 15 million square meters or the size of 3,000 football fields!).