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Rhineland-Palatinate is serious.
In the state forest of the country, closed beech forests that are more than 100 years old are no longer used for the time being.
The canopy of the forest should remain closed in order to avoid that too much heat gets into the stand due to timber harvesting, weakening the trees and causing them to die.
Has the use of wood become a risk for forest management?
A study by Greenpeace and the Öko-Institut calls for a significant reduction in the use of wood, which could make forests denser and also store more carbon.
In the variant known as the “forest vision”, around 16 percent of the German forest is also to be taken out of use.
That sounds like a paradigm shift in forest management.
Wood has been used on a good 95 percent of the forest area in Germany today, and it has been used with increasing intensity for decades.
Nevertheless, as the forest inventories show, only around 85 to 90 percent of the annual growth is skimmed off.
This is what the markings on the trees mean
Peter Spathelf from the University for Sustainable Development in Eberswalde explains in the video what the different markings on trees mean.
Source: Pascal Ertl / WELT
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Do not use more wood than it grows is the core of sustainability, which, proclaimed more than 300 years ago by the Saxon chief miner Hans Carl von Carlowitz, found its way into the use of forests from the early 19th century.
Sustainable forest use is the global standard for responsible forest management.
Wood is used in a wide variety of ways: as construction wood, wood for interior fittings and furniture, wood-based materials and cellulose to firewood for the home stove or for heating power plants based on pellets.
In 2019, 68 million cubic meters of raw wood were felled on almost eleven million hectares of (used) forest area in Germany, and another seven million cubic meters were imported from abroad.
Domestic use of wood means income for more than two million forest owners.
The valuable renewable raw material is the basis for an economic cluster with 1.1 million jobs and an annual turnover of 180 billion euros.
In order to make the use as compatible with the ecosystem as possible, the forest owners usually make considerable efforts.
The forest is accessible through a network of paths, usually 40 meters apart.
Machines such as harvesters (wood harvesting machines) are only allowed to move on these logging paths.
This protects the majority of the forest floor.
The aim is to minimize damage to the remaining trees during the timber harvest.
However, one thing is clear: the use of wood is an intervention in the ecosystem with effects on material flows and biodiversity.
Even forest managed close to nature is a human-shaped forest and thus a cultural landscape.
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When it comes to the use of wood in Germany, softwood still plays the main role with 73 percent.
Softwood is mainly used as logs in construction, while hardwood is 70 percent burned.
In order to use the limited resource wood more efficiently and comprehensively in an industrial setting, multiple or cascade use, the repeated use of wood, has been discussed for some time.
The raw material is first processed into sawn timber, then into chipboard and finally used as energy wood.
Alternatively, the paper obtained from industrial wood is recycled into waste paper after it has been used and ultimately used for energy.
As a result, the carbon bound in the wood remains withdrawn from the atmosphere for longer and is only released again at the end of the longest possible cascade.
The skeptical view of climate activists on the use of wood is incomprehensible, because the use of wood means climate protection.
In total, around 2000 million tons of CO2 are stored in Germany's forests.
The forest is the largest carbon sink.
Around 65 million tons of CO2 are added each year.
This increase in carbon sequestration is due to the increase in wood stocks and dead wood as well as carbon stocks in the humus layer and in the forest soil.
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However, CO2 is also stored in wood products (three million tons).
Finally, CO2 emissions are avoided by replacing energy-intensive materials (cement, aluminum) and fuels with wood (30 million tons).
Together, this results in an annual storage capacity of 98 million tons of CO2.
Use of back horses in the forest use - here at the German championship of horse backers
Source: picture alliance / Geisler-Fotop
Reforestation after tree felling on the edge of the Swabian Alb
Source: picture alliance / Zoonar
Around ten percent of German greenhouse gas emissions are offset each year through the use of forests and wood.
This corresponds to two thirds of the carbon emissions of all traffic in Germany.
Compared to the other economic sectors in Germany, such as energy, transport and even agriculture, the forest is the only carbon sink.
However, in order for it to continue to be so, it must be preserved and adapted to climate change.
The use of wood is the "engine" of silviculture.
Forests are cared for by using wood that is gentle on the forest floor and tree population.
The most vital and qualitatively best trees of a stand are promoted by the removal of competitors.
This makes them more vital and more adaptable to climate extremes in the long term.
Demanding silviculture concepts such as permanent forest management, i.e. mixed forest management without clear-cutting, are based - in addition to wild populations that give young trees a chance - on forest use.
In such forests, the wood stocks do not increase as much as when use is reduced or even when use is stopped.
Enough light comes to the forest floor, natural regeneration can take hold and establish itself.
This natural regeneration, which repeatedly grows from below, promotes the gradual development of forests.
This is how rejuvenation works in beeches
Peter Spathelf from the University for Sustainable Development in Eberswalde explains in the video how beeches are picked out and released from oppressors.
Source: Pascal Ertl / WELT
Since the demand for wood far exceeds domestic production in Germany, it has to be imported.
This can have negative effects: Although there are good forest laws in many countries in the global south, their implementation is insufficiently monitored.
Some of the imported wood comes from unsustainable sources, or the management standards are lower than in Germany.
The use is not based on a management plan as in Germany, or essential parts of the management plan are violated: Harvesting of too thin trees that are not yet ready to be cut or of tree species that are not intended for harvest.
Forest certification, i.e. the identification of exemplary, sustainable forest management, is not yet part of the standard repertoire in large parts of the tropics.
In many cases, forests are illegally converted into agricultural areas through slash and burn, and the burned wood directly promotes the greenhouse effect.
For a long time, forest owners and foresters assumed that the other forest functions followed the use of wood in the “wake”.
If you only use enough wood, you can protect the drinking water from the forest or strengthen the recreational function at the same time.
In the meantime, the goals of forest management have shifted in some regions: For example, the State of Berlin puts forest management for the recreational provision of the population above the utility function.
The city does not expect a black zero, but accepts shortfalls in income and additional expenditure in order to optimally manage Berlin's forests as recreational forests.
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What are the prospects for forest use at a time characterized by climate change and diverse demands on the forest?
Forest use offers the opportunity to harvest a natural product with considerable innovation potential.
The palette ranges from new types of wood-based materials to thermowood and textile fibers made from wood.
Wood-based materials are created by breaking up wood into its components such as fibers, chips or veneer lamellas and then putting it back together again.
The aim is to improve the mechanical strength properties, but also the insulation and fire behavior.
Wood-based materials are primarily being used to replace solid wood in construction, in the form of larger prefabricated elements and in almost any (even curved) shape.
These materials can be manufactured industrially and will be indispensable for demanding uses in construction in the future.
In the meantime, complete houses can be built from wood-based materials.
In the USA, for example, entire rows of streets are built on the basis of a frame construction using materials made from wood chips.
In the facade area, even in high-rise buildings, prefabricated elements made of wood-based materials are combined with other materials.
Domestic wood compressed at high temperatures and under pressure acquires better mechanical properties and is used as a local substitute for tropical wood.
Clothing made of wood still sounds like a dream of the future, but opens up a new, immensely large market for wood.
In a special process, viscose is made from wood and spun into a fine wood fiber from which textiles are made.
In many cases, forest management also serves to secure special ecosystem services.
The protective effect of many forests in the mountains against natural hazards such as rockfall or avalanches depends on silvicultural interventions to promote forest regeneration.
In recreational forests, the use of trees serves the diversity of tree species and the diversity of the landscape.
In particular, the rare indigenous tree species such as service tree, whitebeam, service tree, wild pear, black poplar, field maple or yew are weakly competitive compared to the strong beech and can only be preserved permanently in the mixed forests if they are repeatedly released.
Without these measures, the competitive beech would prevail in many forests and form monotonous pure stands.
Forests therefore only provide relevant ecosystem services because they are used and managed, and not just because of their existence.
The forest, which is naturally managed and adapted to climate change, is a good vision for the forest of the future.
Forest use means protection of a central resource - in short: forest use is systemically relevant.
The author is a forest scientist and professor specializing in applied silviculture at the University for Sustainable Development in Eberswalde. He writes a series of texts about the forest for WELT.