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| Wood
Products Trade Introduction North America Europe South America Asia Forests of the World Australia Brazil Canada Chile China Finland Germany Indonesia Japan Korea Mexico Russia United Kingdom Oregon's Forests Forestry Links |
The Forests of Germany | |||
| As a result of increased afforestation since the middle of this century
the forest area of Germany increased by 6% since the middle of this century,
accounting now for 10.8 million ha or 30% of the total land area. Considering
the high population density of more than 225 people per square kilometer
this represents a fairly high percentage.
Located in the temperate zone, originally deciduous trees covered about two thirds of the area. The virgin forests of Central Europe were dominated by beech (Fagus sylvatica ), mixed with other hardwoods such as oak (Quercus robur & Q. petraea), ash (Fraxinus excelsior), maple (Acer pseudoplatanus & A. platanoides), or alder (Alnus glutinosa) depending on site conditions and climate. Only in higher elevations coniferous trees dominated the species mixture. The most important softwood species are silver fir (Abies alba), pine (Pinus sylvatica), spruce (Picea abies), and douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), introduced from the Pacific Northwest of the USA at the end of the last century. Particularly spruce, originally confined to montane and high montane zones, gained a substantially higher share over the centuries due to a softwood supporting forestry mainly aiming at high yield. Today hardwood trees cover only about one third of the forest area. The human-made extension of softwood species to areas where they do not represent part of the natural forest communities caused problems that became most obvious in severe wind throws and the spread of fungi and insects. During the last and most destructive storm in 1990, 60 million cbm of timber were felled -- twice the average annual harvest in Germany. This, coupled with an inventory revealing that only two thirds of the actual growth rate of 6 cbm/year/ha are harvested caused a nosedive of wood prices after 1990. The situation was exacerbated by the opening of the formerly closed Eastern European countries which started to offer wood to prices German forestry could not compete with due to higher production costs. Prices recover slowly and because of increasing deficits of the forest service there is an ongoing debate if wood production or other forestry values such as recreation and protection of watershed should be ranked at the same level or higher. It is declared goal of the States' forest services to pursue all these aims simultaneously and ecological forest management gained more and more support over the last years. Increasing air pollution and other human impacts caused severe damage to the forests in Germany and beyond, but are perhaps best documented in this country. The last nation wide sampling revealed that one quarter of forest trees in Germany show visible signs of damage. The results, however, vary widely depending on the region. The southern states (Bundeslaender) and particularly parts of eastern Germany are most heavily affected. The future will show if the measure taken to stabilize forest ecosystems and to secure and maintain biodiversity in German forests are sufficient. At the moment forest and forestry are in a important transition period with results being unknown. |
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