Funding legend in the district of Dachau warns: “Make wood!

But don't take it all away at once"

Created: 02/26/2022, 08:54

By: Thomas Zimmerly

Always clear words: In 2011, Franz Knierer explained the situation during a walk through the Dachau city forest.

The forest had been described by local residents as a "pig sty".

The forester vehemently denied: "The forest is in good shape." © Zimmerly

The forester Franz Knierer was the number one contact for forest, wood, wild animals or nature conservation.

Now the 64-year-old has retired after 35 years.

Time for one last interview:

How did you actually become a forester?

Franz Knierer: After secondary school, I was trained as a tax officer at the age of 17 in Immenstadt im Allgäu.

After that I was transferred to the data center in Munich.

I was then a computer operator, which is when I realized that I wouldn't be happy with these machines because I knew they would make me superfluous one day.

I also preferred to work with people and in nature.

So at the age of 22 I decided: I will become a forester.

First, I caught up on the vocational diploma with a focus on forestry and then went to Weihenstephan to study.

In 1985 I was done.

In 1987, after my traineeship, I started in the district of Dachau.

Your successor Katharina Nauderer said that a guided tour of the forest with you awakened the desire to become a forester too...

Forest pedagogy has developed into an important task during my service.

It is now even anchored in the Forest Act.

Every third grader should have been outside with the ranger once.

That's our goal.

We also want to show the teachers what is in our forests so that they can deepen the subject of forests in local and general knowledge classes.

However, this only includes about ten percent of the service time.

And the rest?

In addition to many other tasks such as forest supervision and care of community forests, our core task is advising private forest owners.

Forest always has to do with people.

He always has an owner.

In addition to professional advice, my goal was always to help people to help themselves.

I worked closely with the foresters of the self-help organization Forest Owners' Association (WBV) and forest entrepreneurs.

Why is there so little forest in the Dachau region?

Not because the Dachau people don't like the forest and cleared it in the Middle Ages to the present proportion, but that's simply because the very good loamy farmland is here.

Where it gets hillier, there is more forest, because farming was not so good there and people also needed wood.

In the past, people had to live off what they could wrestle from nature on site.

First comes the food.

What about the forest in the Dachau region?

We haven't had such high stocks of wood in our forests since the clearing in the Middle Ages.

That was the achievement of our ancestors.

But at the same time, in the context of climate change, it is also venture capital.

If there is a storm or a mass increase in bark beetles over these very spruce-rich forests, there are 200,000 or 300,000 trees there.

Such quantities cannot be processed at short notice.

It will rot or need to be thrown away.

What does this mean for forest owners?

They can often lose their entire fortune overnight.

And that's why I say: Folks, cut wood.

But don't throw everything away at once.

But do it quickly.

Use your stocks.

Rebuild them.

Use it with thinning and thinning to transform them into mixed deciduous-coniferous forests.

This is an exciting task and it is up to the owners what they make of it.

They are supported by the WBV, which has also hired foresters.

Forest owners who can no longer manage their forest themselves can also conclude a maintenance contract with her.

Are the forest owners involved in the conversion?

Yes.

But the rethinking took time.

When I started in 1987 there were only two types of trees.

One was spruce and the other Boschen, meaning everything that wasn't spruce.

That was a Gruscht, a Graffl, Auwaldglump.

In the meantime, it has been recognized that near-natural forests are also more economical in the long term.

How many tree species are there now?

About 15 local.

But we also have a 100-year-old Douglas fir stock near Kreuzholzhausen, and forest owners who have tried the Lebanon cedar, for example, and have been planting American red oaks for years.

According to the motto: if you scatter, you don't slip, it will become more and more important in the future to rely on different tree species.

What does the bark beetle actually do in the Dachau district?

We fought hard in the last few years and, in contrast to the Lower Franconian forests, we got away with a black eye.

Because the forest owners have managed - in cooperation with the WBV - to work up in good time.

We also have a second factor in the district of Dachau: good soil.

That means our clay soils hold the water longer than in Franconia.

If it's already too dry up there, our floors will hold the water for another week or two.

And then it rained again just in time.

But these two weeks were crucial in preventing mass proliferation from developing.

In the long term, however, only forest conversion with climate-tolerant mixed tree species will help.

Ash dieback is another major problem.

What's the status here?

Many ash trees in the Auwald have already said goodbye.

The rest of them look pretty bad.

For example in Günding, along a settlement, there were mighty ash trees that I had to have felled.

They were still relatively healthy on the outside.

The fine roots had already rotted away.

In a storm like the one we had recently, these large ash trees would have fallen on the houses.

In the meantime we have already planted a near-natural mixed forest again.

The local residents had also immediately submitted a planning application.

Now it's cleared, they said, now we can build on the forest there.

So we said, that's a landscape protection area, that's forest.

What will our forest look like in 100 years?

That depends above all on how climate change develops.

So when these two degrees of warming come, only those tree species that can tolerate this climate will survive.

Which do you mean?

I always say: Why don't the Rhinelanders have any spruces?

Not because they didn't think much of spruce, but because it simply didn't grow there, because it was already two degrees warmer there than here.

But that also means that we get a climate like in a wine-growing region.

So also the tree species like there.

That means the oak will play a big role.

For the softwoods, it will be the drought-resistant Douglas fir.

Or chestnuts, i.e. sweet chestnuts, tree hazel – all kinds of tree species that grow in such an area.

My biggest concern is that we will not reach our climate target.

Then it goes in the direction of Mediterranean maquis.

We only have low trees and bushes.

You are now retired.

What are you doing in the future?

When I think of my limited remaining lifespan, I have to hurry to be able to do what I still want to see and experience.

Things like long trips abroad.

I can still live in the forester's lodge in Odelzhausen for a year or two.

In the long term, however, we will move to Augsburg because we bought an apartment there years ago.

Interview: Thomas Zimmerly

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