The consequences of climate change have long since reached the local forests.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung immediately kept its promise to do something about it: By participating in a reforestation project by HessenForst, the FAZ is now giving back its remaining resource consumption of the equivalent of 6,000 trees in the year of nature.

Carsten Knop

Editor.

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If you want to take a closer look at the project, you start at the “Landsgraben” car park, north of Eppstein im Taunus and just a stone's throw from Königstein.

One and a half kilometers it goes up the mountain in a left curve - then a three and a half hectare large bare area opens up.

It is located on the Eichkopf in the area of ​​forester Jochen Raus, which is 15 square kilometers in size.

On this November day, the sun shines in friendly brown tones.

But three years ago everything was green here, there was a dense spruce forest.

"A year later the forest was gone"

The year 2019 was the beginning. "That's when it started," says Raus. “A year later, the forest had disappeared.” The blame for this lies in the drought: it was too hot in the summers and there is not enough precipitation. This makes the bark beetle happy, but at the same time damages the defenses of the trees. "The dried up trees could not develop any resin to defend themselves against the book printer," explains Raus - this is the name of the bark beetle, which specializes in spruce trees.

If the natural defenses of nature work and if it is humid enough, if the trees are healthy, then the bark beetle has no great chance. But today only a handful of larches and a lonely Douglas fir, which are not on the bark beetle's menu, bear witness to the height of the former forest. "The spruces were 75 years old and would not have been harvested until another 25 at the earliest," says the forester, recalling the literally sustainable work that is done here.

The planting of the 6000 trees in the first step with the help of the FAZ is therefore a commitment for the future. Because annual seedlings, mostly oaks, get into the forest floor, exactly in a ratio of five to one, in a surprisingly dense plantation. They are complemented by beech, linden and hornbeam. Because young oaks are also eaten by other animals, the new plantings are protected with a fence. The locations for the more than 10,000 trees that will be planted with the support of this newspaper are also in local forests.

The dimensions in which a forester has to think can be seen back at the “Landsgraben” car park.

There are huge oaks here.

Her age: almost 200 years.

You still have to watch out for the fresh one-year-olds when pedaling.

In 30 years the trunk diameter will be around 20 centimeters.

It is a long way to go, but a start has been made.

The Landesbetrieb HessenForst is faced with the task of reforesting around 30,000 hectares of state forest in such a way that it can withstand climate change and extreme weather events.

The FAZ joins this project with its contribution.