As of: February 6, 2024, 8:29 a.m
By: Jannis Gogolin
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At the tree stump (from left) Florian Loher, managing director of the Wolfratshauser Forest Owners Association, forester Robert Nörr and forester candidate Malte Gietz talk about felling and young trees.
© Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss
Forester Robert Nörr cuts down trees for the environment.
Some see this as a contradiction.
During a tour through the forest, the forester explains the approach.
Icking – The rain is pelting and covering every sound.
Even the hum of district forester Robert Nörr's car as he drives towards the Walchstadt district of Icking in the morning.
“I don’t complain about precipitation.
We are grateful for every drop,” says the forester, laughing as he looks through the windshield wiper.
He and forester Florian Loher from the Wolfratshauser Forest Owners Association get out at a fenced-in area of forest.
Wide, almost white tree stumps stand out among the evergreen spruce trees and the brown foliage of the beech trees.
The traces of the most recent felling from four weeks ago are still fresh - sawdust surrounds the now empty areas in the forest.
Cut down trees for the environment?
Förster is pursuing a paradoxical climate plan
The tree stumps are important to the forester.
Robert Nörr felled trees near Icking for the climate.
“It sounds paradoxical, I know,” admits the Wolfratshauser.
The plants actually have a climate-protecting function.
The wood of the trees stores carbon dioxide (CO2).
Simple formula: the more trees, the fewer pollutants in the atmosphere.
Nevertheless, Nörr has removed around a third of the trees from the 4,000 square meter area since 2010.
Many forest owners would only hope that the trees would get older, grow and continue to bind CO2.
“Shutting down the forest,” Nörr calls it. The district forester pursues a completely different strategy.
Felling trees for the climate: They replace oil, gas or concrete
He has old trees felled for two reasons: After felling, construction wood and pellets can be used to replace CO2-intensive raw materials such as concrete and oil or gas.
And the offspring of the trees uses the free space: young plants only grow when they get light - and in the process bind carbon.
“It benefits the environment twice,” says Nörr.
The life of trees is also finite.
At the end of their existence they become more susceptible to diseases, storms and pests.
The result can be seen in a nearby forest.
“The bark beetle has eaten a hole in the rows of trees.” Next to it are 30-meter-high, but only thigh-thick spruce trees that “may not survive the next storm,” estimates Loher.
Tons of CO2 stored: Forests are good for the climate
In 2010, the trees in the section of the Ickingen community forest still had a total of 156 cubic meters of wood.
Since then, almost a third has been felled - the inventory has been reduced to 102 cubic meters.
Nörr reforested with fir seedlings.
Within the 14 years, “the tree youth gained four cubic meters of wood per year,” explains Nörr.
The forest now contains more wood than before - a total of 158 cubic meters - even though a lot has been felled.
One cubic meter of wood binds around 1.8 tons of CO2 - not only when it is standing, but also when it has been felled.
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Trees save the climate - if you cut them down, explains Revierförster
Nörr's calculation continues.
The felled trees are used, for example, as building materials.
They are an alternative to less environmentally friendly building materials such as concrete.
Or the trees serve as energy sources and make gas or oil unnecessary.
This saves even more carbon dioxide - and increases the pollutant savings in the Walchstadt forest to over 290 tons of CO2.
“As much as 81 flights from Munich to New York use,” says Nörr.
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As forest owner Loher says, too few of the approximately 5,000 forest owners in the district know about this model calculation.
That's why the foresters started an awareness campaign.
“We are trying to mobilize with machines, work, specialist knowledge and training.” Much of the forest is privately owned.
Loher: “Many people know about climate change, but have forgotten their forest.”
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