Storms, bark beetles, game browsing: it depends on people like the forester Gudula Lermer whether the threatened ecosystem can survive climate change.
It was a local thunderstorm. A few kilometers further on, there was hardly anything to be felt. And it was over in ten minutes. But here, in a magnificent old mixed forest deep in the inner Bavarian Forest near Mauth, it has unfolded an immense force. “It was like a tornado,” says Gudula Lermer. “The storm eddies lifted mighty firs, spruces and beeches out of the ground with unbridled force and knocked them down or splintered them.” When Lermer was back in the forest for the first time after the thunderstorm, she could hardly believe it. Giant uprooted trees piled on top of each other so chaotically. Lermer’s people have now brought about 2000 tribes out of the forest. But they still haven’t finished cleaning up. A little further back in the forest, a chainsaw screeches and a diesel engine hums. Two foresters pull out one broken spruce after the other with heavy equipment.