Certainly, local patriotism presumably plays a role. But the following shaking verses cannot be dismissed as simple, provincial narrow-mindedness: “Not to the south over the Brenner Pass, / No! To the north, the connoisseur is drawn! / Those who florence, romt and venice, / are soon finished. / But who goes to the Göhrde drives, / he will be bestowed with the greatest happiness.”
The mockingly culture-hostile and nature-friendly rhymes come from a booklet entitled “Ferien in der Köhlerei”, self-published by Hans and Ragnit von Mosch at the end of the 1970s. And who is now quoting from this in his book “Unter Bäume”, that is Helmut Schreier, professor emeritus for educational sciences. His self-imposed educational mission: to share his enthusiasm for nature and, ideally, to pass it on. “I feel good under trees,” says Schreier. More obviously than in important cities. In any case, the well-travelled man has settled down on the Middle Elbe and appreciates the nature around him more and more.
The Göhrde is a 75 square kilometer state forest in Lower Saxony, not far from the Elbe and the former inner-German border, with many old trees, to which two packs of wolves recently returned. And the Göhrde is one of five forest areas in the vicinity that Helmut Schreier knows well and on which he substantiates his explanations about trees and forests.
“Unter Bäume” is one of three books with which the KJM book publisher has started a new series, the European Essays on Nature and Landscape. The other two books deal with the beach and the heath. Four more titles are to be released in autumn, “Hügelland”, “Meer”, “Talmäander” and “Himmel”. Nature writing is the keyword, a literary trend that has increased massively in recent years. Robert Macfarlane should be mentioned here, as well as Judith Schalansky, of course. And what is meant are works that do not want to limit themselves solely to scientific facts in the description of nature.
In the German-language European Essays on Nature and Landscape, climate protection is the focus. But in order to be able to take a look at it, it is necessary to sketch a concrete landscape precisely. In other words, wandering back into their past, into their becoming, in order to make developments comprehensible that either continue to this day or have been interrupted in favor of something new.
“Forests are human creations,” writes Schreier, and that applies even more to the heath. The journalist and author Claus-Peter Lieckfeld, born in the Lüneburg Heath and with deep roots there – a Heidjer in other words – describes how this landscape was prepared and prepared in order to give its inhabitants a meager livelihood. And that it would no longer exist in this form today, since it has long since ceased to serve its original purpose, if it had not been recognized early on that this type of landscape needed to be protected.
Tourism now benefits from this. Who has to be gentler if he doesn’t want to destroy what is felt to be worth seeing and experiencing. The essays aim to raise awareness of this through the high level of expertise of the authors. A wealth of knowledge that is not read in all three books, but accumulated through personal experience and research.
Karsten Reise and Hella Kemper’s “Strand” is also about very specific beaches on and in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, about their growth and disappearance, about the biodiversity in a handful of sand. A passage about the so-called sand gap fauna is particularly noteworthy. This means the very smallest animals that can move through the narrow gaps between the grains of sand without having to push them aside.
Cleaning seaweed from beaches is not just an aesthetic issue
You learn, you marvel, you let yourself be inspired in these bibliophilely designed books about natural spaces that most readers probably only know superficially. And understands that every human action has consequences for the forests, the heath, the beaches, positive as well as negative and sometimes both at the same time – because the landscapes do not simply exist, forever and ever, but are a configuration of the circumstances. Cleaning seaweed from beaches is not just an aesthetic issue. Every forestry strategy has an impact on the forest ecosystem. And without Heidschnucken there is no longer a heathland.
It is pleasant that all three books deal with their respective topics in a playful manner and that the appeal character is kept within narrow limits. “Heide”, “Strand” and “Unter Bäume” are not about ideology, but about passions.
Claus-Peter Lieckfeld: heath. European Essays on Nature and Landscape. KJM-Buchverlag, Hamburg 2023. 135 pages, 20 euros.
Karsten Reise, Hella Kemper: Beach. European Essays on Nature and Landscape. KJM-Buchverlag, Hamburg 2023. 144 pages, 20 euros.
Helmut Schreier: Under trees. European Essays on Nature and Landscape. KJM-Buchverlag, Hamburg 2023. 143 pages, 20 euros.