The forester relies on the forest to be able to heal itself - even in times of drought and rising temperatures.

Forestry Director Sebastian Gräf stands in the forest on the Herzberg near Bad Homburg next to a large bare area.

There is no longer a tree there because the drought of the past three years has destroyed the spruce stand.

Only tree stumps are left of the trees.

There are still individual conifers around the open space.

The forester would like trees to grow again on the bare area, but he does not want to plant young trees from the tree nursery there.

Rather, he has made one thing: "Keep calm."

Jan Schiefenhövel

Freelance author in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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He wants to give the forest time, because he hopes for "natural regeneration".

This is what the forest experts call it when trees sow themselves, for example with seeds from the surrounding area.

Gräf points to the tiny green that sprouts out of the ground here and there on the bare surface.

These are very young trees, only a few centimeters tall, they are called “annual seedlings” in the technical language of foresters.

This proves that natural rejuvenation can work.

A mixed forest as a "genetic reservoir"

Gräf hopes that in this natural way a mixed stand of four or five tree species will emerge within several years, for example larch, pine, beech and oak, and perhaps some spruce in between. For this purpose, tree species that are pioneers will be sowing, i.e. fast-growing trees such as birch and mountain ash. According to the forester, a mixed stand means “risk diversification” because different species complement each other with their properties. In the next few years it will be possible to see which species can best cope with the changing climate with less rain and rising temperatures.

The forester is convinced that the mixture should primarily consist of native species, because they cope best with the conditions in the Taunus. Gräf describes the typical trees of the region as a “genetic reservoir” and hopes that the native species can get used to the drought. He will have to observe this in the forest in the near future. As a supplement, the forester on the Herzberg planted some five-year-old silver firs that had sown themselves elsewhere, near Königstein. Gräf also believes that this species can tolerate a drier climate. The forester does not make a dogma out of the native species. Here and there he will plant a Douglas fir, a type of tree that comes from arid regions in North America and that gets by with little rain in summer.

Even where natural regeneration works, foresters and forest workers intervene to promote the trees they want.

As an example, Gräf shows an area down the slope on which deciduous and coniferous trees have grown in the past ten to 15 years - after damage from windthrow and bark beetle infestation.

There, the desired species are given more air and light by removing other plants, such as spruces, with a slim saw.

Preventing climate change with forest care

In any case, natural rejuvenation is not the best solution everywhere. If the blackberry spreads in open areas, action must be taken quickly, as district manager Philipp Gerhardt says. The prickly bushes are competing plants for trees. The forestry department uses its trainees to keep the blackberries small. To do this, the young men press down the branches of the bushes with a special rake.

The effort is also worthwhile because taking care of the forest can prevent climate change, as Michael Gerst, state manager of Hessen-Forst, says. Ultimately, the trees bind carbon dioxide from the air, which can then no longer increase the greenhouse effect. Gerst is convinced that more forest is needed for this. Trees may be felled in order to process the wood, for example as construction timber. After all, processed wood is a permanent store for carbon dioxide.

Maintaining the forest so intensively and preparing it for climate change costs a lot of money, as the State Secretary of the Environment Ministry, Oliver Conz (The Greens), says. In the past two years, he says, 24 million euros have been invested in Hessen to plant six million young trees. So everyone gets to feel the climate change financially, because this money is missing for the construction of schools and kindergartens.