The scene looks like something out of a bizarre fairytale film: high trunks surrounded by November fog, moss that shines on the forest floor. It smells of resin and leaves and cold, branches crack. And two women and 14 men in knitted hats work their way through the undergrowth. “What do we cut now?” Asks one of them. “I don’t know my way around anymore.”
That he doesn’t know his way around is a pretense. In fact, Florian Loher probably knows his way around the group best: He is a forester and managing director of the Wolfratshauser Waldbesitzer-Vereinigung, for which he received a state award for “exemplary forest management” last week. As is so often the case on Fridays, he leads a group of forest owners through the Schäftlarner Unterholz and explains, together with district manager Gerrith Hinner, what is important in modern forest management. Because: The forest will not survive as it was before. Forest and wood are trendy right now.
“Now I have to ask you, dear friend, are these the trees of the future or are you going to cut them?” Gerrith Hinner joins Loher’s questions. The two forest scientists are now in the middle of the group, surrounded by spruce forest, they have marked several trees with strings. It is those trees whose crowns look sparse compared to those of the others, which grow thinner and smaller than others. Should they be felled? Some of the men timidly raise their hands. In the past you would have done it that way. In the past, when cleanliness and order reigned in the forest. The doctrine today is different.
“Forget the white ribbons,” says Loher, “these are exactly the trees that stay there.” The weaker trees can be allowed to grow until they are thick and make money. Because: They don’t bother you, on the contrary. When Loher and Hinner stop in a clearing, it becomes clear why. Larchs have been planted everywhere here, says Hinner. But the small seedlings would be overgrown with blackberries. “As soon as there is more light, the blackberry comes,” says Hinner, “and then you have sweat, blood and tears.” Every tree is a good source of shade – even a weak one.
Florian Loher and Gerrith Hinner explain to forest owners what is important in modern forest management.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
But shade or not, the forest shouldn’t be left to its own devices, think the two men. They come to a stop in a clearing. It is surrounded by thin spruce trunks that are so close together that the forest here is very dark and quiet. There is a big hole in the middle. Snow crushed the trees here in winter. They were so close together that their crowns branched into one another. The snow could not fall through and instead crushed an entire area of the forest – “snow break,” says Hinner. This is not only due to the fact that the trees here have been left to their own devices and are close to you. Rather, it is a question of a monoculture made of spruce trees.
A few hundred years ago, says Loher, the spruce was brought from the Alps to the plains. It has a broad, flat root system with which it can also be anchored in crevices in the rock. “It is growing tremendously,” says Loher. “There is hardly any wood that is so united for building.” But its shallow root system is its undoing in times of climate change. It makes them vulnerable to storms, drought, and bark beetles. Since it rains more in the foothills of the Alps than in other regions, forest owners could still allow themselves a spruce share of 50 percent, says Loher, “but not more.” The rest: “Fir, beech, sycamore.”
The new tree of the hour in the region is the beech. Because she is at home here. Unlike the spruce, snow can fall through its crown in winter. In other respects, too, it is more robust than spruce in this country. Loher pulls a piece of beech wood from behind his back: “It’s a beautiful wood, with a shimmering grain.” Beech is suitable as an easy-care parquet, and: “Beech has a much higher density than spruce.” Houses could be built slimmer this way. A few minutes later, Loher’s praise turns into anger. A tractor track leads away from a lane. Only about five meters long, but the furrows in the ground are deep. “When I see something like that, I start screaming,” he says. The aisle – Loher and Hinner call it “Rückegasse” – is used for forest work with heavy trucks. Such an alley can be created every 30 meters, but the forest workers should not deviate from it. But here a forest worker seems to have done just that. “In this area the floor is broken – for thousands of years.”
For forest owners, the trees no longer grow into the sky.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
The soil compaction caused by forest vehicles weighing tons is so strong that no frost and no terrestrial animal can break it up again so quickly. Plants can hardly grow there. For this reason, some forest owners used tractors for work in the forest instead. But the damage they cause with it is even greater, says Loher: With forwarding vehicles, the weight is distributed over more wheels, the pressure on the ground is at least distributed as a result.
Letting trees grow instead of cutting them down, planting mixed forests instead of monoculture, avoiding soil compaction – none of these findings are really new. Nonetheless, the forest through which the group strides shows some examples of poor management. Hinner shrugs his shoulders. “If you’ve always done it this way, keep doing it.” It is also not easy for anyone who really wants to earn money with wood. Loher estimates that 150 euros could be earned with a spruce trunk – with a tree that has grown for 80 years.
Still, forest ownership is trendy. “Everyone has rediscovered the forest,” says Hinner. “Through Corona everyone has discovered that recreation can not only be found in Greece, but also here.” Wood as a raw material for building is now popular again. Many people turned to the forest owners’ association to see if they weren’t selling forest land, says Loher. “Now people buy forests with all their money.” Books like “The Secret Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben are bestsellers.
But forest ownership, the participants in the group agreed, means work. And Loher advises against leaving the forest to its own devices so that it can heal on its own. Of course, nature will regulate itself again, says Loher. “We’ll wait for the next thousand years, and if that’s not enough, the next 10,000 years.” Just: “We don’t have the time.”