Hessian forest damage report: Help for a terminally ill

"The Hessian forest is terminally ill and this year has only given us a respite." This is the conclusion of State Secretary for the Environment Oliver Conz, who presented this year's forest status report on Thursday. Its results are not good, because although Hessen was spared heat waves and prolonged dry periods this year, the state of health of the trees has only improved slightly compared to the previous year. “We have lost 70,000 hectares of forest in Hesse that we have to reforest”, the State Secretary clarified the dimension of the challenge and added: “The results of the forest status report show that the state of health has persisted since 2019. The older trees are particularly affected.“In addition to the drought, beetles and fungi have also severely damaged Hesse's forests in recent years.

By 2023, 260 million euros are available to reforest the Hessian forest in a climate-stable manner and thus make it more resistant to climate change.

Private and municipal forest owners also receive support in order to plant healthy mixed forests in the future.

Depending on the type and size of the forest, funding of up to 90 percent is possible.

“As part of the integrated climate protection plan 2025, we created a climate risk map for the forest in Hesse,” said Conz.

Building on this, the forest development goals would be described and recommendations for trees to be planted would be made.

Negative records this year

This is of considerable importance because it is no longer just spruce trees that are affected. Ulrike Talkner, Head of Environmental Control at the Northwest German Forest Research Institute, presented the results of the forest status report in detail. According to this, the so-called mean crown defoliation in older oaks increased from 23 to 28 percent within one year. In older beech trees it has fallen slightly from 35 to 33 percent and in older spruce trees it remains almost unchanged at 49 percent. The death rate of all trees has fallen to 0.7 percent, but is still almost twice as high as the long-term average. The proportion of severe damage this year is eight percent, almost three times as high as the average for the years 1984 to 2020. "The year 2021 has some negative records to show",said Talkner during the presentation in the Taunussteiner Staatsforst directly below the Iron Hand. The fact that this is the case despite the high rainfall this year also proves the weakness of the trees' vitality, which are still weakened by the heat waves of recent years. The complete report can be found on the Internet at https://umwelt.hessen.de.

"The Rhine-Main plain is the problem child among the forests in Hesse," continued Talkner.

Sandy soils, dense development and too little water are the reasons that trees in the Rhine-Main area have a particularly difficult time.

She warned that the forest could lose some of its protective and useful functions if not counteracted.

Forest has to be reforested

This is precisely the task of the Hessen Forest State Office. Stefan Nowak, head of the forest development department, is faced with the task of reforesting 30,000 hectares of state forest. This, he announced, should be done with as many different trees as possible. According to Nowak, red oaks, Douglas firs, service berries, sycamore and norway maples as well as winter linden trees come into question. Silver firs are also possible as a supplement for spruce. It is not yet clear which of these trees will prove to be climate-stable. "There are no tree species with a large distribution in Hesse that have not been massively damaged," said Novak, explaining the problem.

Hessen Forst will not actively reforest all bare areas, but instead, according to Novak, is relying on so-called natural regeneration for 30 to 50 percent of the areas. This means that the natural sowing of the trees should lead to the forests growing back. To do this, however, the young shoots must also be protected from being bitten by game, which is why, according to Novak, Hessen Forst has intensified the hunt as far as possible.

The results of the forest status report have been assessed differently by the Hessian politicians. Frank Diefenbach, spokesman for forests in the parliamentary group of the Greens, called for an “ecological turnaround in the forest” and announced that the state government and Hesse's forest owners would set the course for the reconstruction of the forest. Markus Meysner, forest policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group, praised the state government's program for forest conversion. The AfD also called it sensible to plant a mixed forest that offers the best protection against drought and storms. The Left called the turn to sustainable forestry overdue and called for the forests to be preserved instead of “clearing them for highways”. The FDP parliamentary group called for the staff of Hessen Forst to be increased and to research more intensively,which tree species can permanently strengthen Hesse's forests.