If you like to roam through wide deciduous forests with ancient oaks and mighty beeches, then the border region between Lower Franconia and Hesse is the right place for you. The Spessart extends there. The 2440 square kilometer low mountain range, which many know from the robber’s clothes “Das Wirtshaus im Spessart”, is the largest contiguous deciduous forest region in Germany. Two thirds belong to Bavaria, one third to Hesse. Now the chances are good that a biosphere reserve will be set up on the Bavarian side. It would be the third in the Free State – after the Berchtesgadener Land and the Rhön. A feasibility study is already underway and a project manager has been hired. The plan gives new impetus to the debate about large protected areas in Bavaria.
The Spessart biosphere reserve is a project of the districts of Aschaffenburg, Main-Spessart and Miltenberg and the city of Aschaffenburg. It is based on an idea of the local state association for bird protection (LBV). The local politicians are very enthusiastic about it. “The biosphere reserve is a great opportunity for us,” says Main-Spessart district administrator Sabine Sitter (CSU). “In this way we can become a model region for sustainable development.” Sitters party colleague, the Aschaffenburg District Administrator Alexander Legler, speaks of a “real benefit and added value for the people, our region and nature and thus the quality of life on site”. The Miltenberg district administrator Jens Marco Scherf (Greens) and the Aschaffenburg mayor Jürgen Herzing (SPD) openly support the project.
The plans are surprising in that large parts of the population, but above all the local politicians in the region, spoke out strictly against more nature conservation in the Spessart only six years ago. It was 2016 when the then Prime Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) had the idea for a third national park in Bavaria. Experts quickly agreed that it should be set up in the Spessart. Because it’s not just the vastness of the forests, the gentle meadow valleys and the many quiet villages that make the region something special. But their originality and the unique diversity of species. Hartwig Brönner and other honorary experts from the LBV have documented them over many years of work.
From the point of view of Sabine Sitter, district administrator in the Main-Spessart district, the biosphere reserve is a “great opportunity”.
(Photo: private)
The Rohrberg nature reserve and the Eichhall natural forest reserve, for example. There, 400-year-old oaks and almost 200-year-old beeches soar into the sky. There even lives a small colony of swifts. The birds are extremely adapted to life in the air, outside of the breeding season they are practically only in the sky. As former rock breeders, the culture followers are found almost exclusively in cities. The colony on Rohberg and in Eichhall is one of the very few in Germany in a forest. The swifts use abandoned woodpecker holes in old oaks and beeches as nesting sites. The two pieces of forest are also home to countless other animals. Experts have identified 200 beetle species in them alone, including 80 endangered species such as the extremely rare hermit. The gray woodpecker and the Bechstein’s bat are also at home here.
200 beetle species have been documented in the Spessart, including 80 which, like the hermit, are extremely rare and threatened with extinction.
(Photo: Imago)
The Spessart is indisputably one of the ecologically most valuable deciduous forests in Germany. Years ago, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) put the region in seventh place in a ranking of beech forests, ahead of Brandenburg’s Müritz National Park, in which the Serrahn beech forest world heritage site is located. In Bavaria, according to the BfN, only the Steigerwald, which is also in Franconia, is even more valuable. But the people in the Spessart, especially those in the small villages, didn’t want a national park. Above all, they feared for their rights to the firewood from the forests. The resistance was so angry that Prime Minister and CSU leader Markus Söder rejected the plans as soon as he succeeded Seehofer in both offices.
So now a biosphere reserve. The most important reason for the change of heart is that a biosphere reserve also has nature conservation on its agenda, but it is something fundamentally different from a national park. In a national park, the principle “let nature be nature” applies. There, the natural processes are not even interfered with when – as in the Bavarian Forest National Park – pests such as the bark beetle destroy thousands of hectares of spruce forest. That’s why local people are strongly opposed to national park plans in their region. Because they are usually closely linked to their forests for generations and do not want them to be damaged.
The gray woodpecker is another rare character species in the Spessart.
(Photo: Friedhelm Adam/Imago)
In a biosphere reserve, on the other hand, the focus is on protecting a cultural landscape created by human hands over the centuries. This is what the UNESCO program “Man and Biosphere” says. The subdivision of the United Nations is responsible for the recognition of biosphere reserves. The principle of “let nature be nature” also comes into its own in these protected areas. However, only in special areas such as Rohrberg or in Eichhall. And overall, the so-called core zone, which can be spread over a number of areas, only has to make up three percent of the respective biosphere reserve. In national parks, on the other hand, the core zone should make up at least three quarters of the area.
Otherwise, a distinction is made between a maintenance zone and a development zone in biosphere reserves. The latter in particular makes the plans so interesting from the point of view of the Spessart local politicians. Because it is about the sustainable development of the region – also in economic and social terms. “As unique as the nature and the landscape are here with us,” says District Administrator Sitter. “The Spessart has more to offer. We are a very strong region economically and socially.” District Administrator Legler also emphasizes that a biosphere reserve is expressly about the “coexistence of man and nature”.
The Aschaffenburg District Administrator Alexander Legler emphasizes that a biosphere reserve is about the “coexistence of man and nature”.
(Photo: private)
In addition, district administrators Sitter and Legler – as well as the Aschaffenburg mayor Herzing – are politically unencumbered by the former national park dispute. They are new in office, they were only elected to head their districts and the city of Aschaffenburg in the 2020 local elections. Scherf, on the other hand, has been district administrator in Miltenberg since 2014 and experienced the sharp clashes up close. Of course, the Greens politician has already made it clear at the time that he supports everything that promotes the protection of the Spessart.
Of course, the local politicians want to avoid a repeat of the previous dispute. “A key mistake in the national park plans was definitely that they were imposed on the local population from above,” says Sitter. “The idea for such projects must come from the region. It must develop out of it.” That’s why the district administrators talked to the farmers, the hunters and the forest owners right from the start. And with the mayors, all the other local politicians and the population. In the feasibility study, public forums and information events have been downright institutionalized. As much as Sitter and Legler are enthusiastic about a biosphere reserve in the Spessart, they emphasize that “it is an open process and you cannot anticipate any results”.