Let nature work for you
Created: 05/03/2022 17:02
By: Hanna von Prittwitz
Interested forest visitors and experts (from left): Maxi Heinzler, Robert Wihan (FW municipal council), Jörg Heinzler (forest owner), Deputy Mayor Josef Kraus, Harald Appelt (AELF), Gerald Grobbel (Greens municipal council), Juliane Seeliger-von Gemmingen (culture officer ), Traudl Helm, Christian Ufer (landscape architect) and Barbara König-Schmidbauer (employee in the municipality of Wörthsee) The basic principle is: I use as much as grows back.
Harald Appelt, Office for Food, Agriculture and Forestry © private
How do you manage a forest sustainably?
What is a tree worth?
What are the consequences of climate change?
About an extremely informative walk near Steinebach.
Steinebach – The new lecture series “Talk im Rathaus” starts in Wörthsee with a visit to the forest.
District forester Harald Appelt from the Office for Food, Agriculture and Forestry (AELF) left with around 15 curious people in the small forest on Kuckuckstraße in Steinebach in the early evening to talk to them about modern and sustainable forestry, about natural regeneration and the balancing act between forest use and biodiversity.
Among the audience: municipal councilors and deputy mayor Josef Kraus, landscape architect Christian Ufer, who oversees numerous projects for the municipality, and Jörg Heinzler, forest owner and board member of the Starnberg Beekeeping Association.
Appelt is responsible for around 6,200 hectares of forest around the communities of Wörthsee, Gauting, Weßling, Gilching and Krailling.
His tasks include - in addition to excursions like these - advising private forest owners when it comes to forest maintenance or state subsidies.
"And we have sovereignty in the forest and are responsible for ensuring that the forest owners and third parties comply with the rights of the forest."
The small excursion began in the book section on Cuckoo Street.
A supermarket is currently being built a few hundred meters away as the crow flies, and people have already fallen for it.
The additionally planned residential quarter is to be supplied with a wood chip heating plant, which requires further felling.
The citizenry is alarmed.
Regardless of this, Appelt had marked several old beeches in the spring that should be removed.
Christian Ufer partially reversed this in consultation with the community (we reported).
No problem for Apple.
"This is a political decision by the community that we have to accept." Of course, it was also about the obligation to ensure traffic safety.
Many trees fall victim to it because when they fall on roads and paths they are a problem due to legislation and the responsibility of their owners.
The small gathering quickly got to the topic of sustainability.
How contemporary is forestry in terms of sustainability and climate change?
"If society no longer wants management, we will no longer manage," said Appelt.
On the other hand, management controls the development of a forest.
"We can set a lot of course and maintain the future viability of a forest through management." However, management has no influence on catastrophes such as storms of the century, which occur every seven years, and tree diseases, that is also clear.
"But if we don't do anything in this beech forest, we'll only have beeches.
If they fall ill, and this can be clearly seen along the Autobahn in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, for example, we also have a problem here.
The assembly stood under a tall beech tree.
Everyone estimated the age at 40 to 60 years, the tree has been here for 130 to 150 years, estimates Appelt.
He has marked it in red because it is ready to be felled.
That means its trunk wood is good to use.
The tree is worth around 1000 euros, 130 to 160 euros per cubic meter, around 100 euros are spent on processing.
The beech may remain standing for the time being.
"But sooner or later we'll take them out." A generation change is due, "the rejuvenation is taking place".
No reason for outrage, also finds shore.
"In the municipality, the compensatory plantings are de facto increasing, especially on the Ziegelstadel forest."
"We all have demands on the forest, it fulfills many functions," explained Appelt.
“And we can use our local wood because we know the conditions.
The basic principle is: I use as much as grows back.” He cannot simply switch and rule in the forest, but a municipal forest like the Steinebacher is planned by experts for 20 years.
"We don't just walk through the forest with the euro sign in our eyes," assured the district forester.
Modern forestry lets nature work for you.
"In most cases, she does it better than we do." He always looks to the future.
Which tree species can withstand climate change?
Which ones match the location?
"So we do relatively complex things in the forest, and it usually ends with the chainsaw running."
Is the forest enough for the high demands?
The figures of the National Forest Inventory are from 2012, more up-to-date figures are expected in the near future.
The old ones show that at least the forests in Bavaria are still doing quite well.
Appelt estimates that six solid cubic meters of wood grow per hectare in a forest like this one on Kuckuckstraße.
According to statistics, it can be up to twelve solid meters in other forests.
Concerns that the residual wood is not enough for a wood chip heating system, for example, are unfounded.
"The residual wood from 230 hectares of forest is enough, and the community has 600 hectares," added forest owner Heinzler.
Finally, the work of the mighty harvesters, which often leave brutal tracks in the forest, was briefly discussed, which worried the listener Traudl Helm.
Appelt understands that. "But the harvesters are the safest thing we have," he said, adding that there is one dead forest worker for every one cubic meter of windblown wood.
Apart from that, the machines cost at least 800,000 euros: "They have a full schedule and cannot wait." None of the approximately 800,000 forest owners in Bavaria should exaggerate.
"They control what they do.
Forest remains forest.”