Climate plastic forest
The term climatic plastic forest describes a model for future forest development . Such a model is intended to help forest owners and foresters make decisions about how to deal with climate change and other changes and to develop future-oriented, sustainable forests on the basis of forecasts.
introduction
In the opinion of the Council for Sustainable Development, the demands on the forest and the associated conflicting goals are constantly growing. The most important forest product, wood , is traditionally not only in demand as a raw material for the construction and furniture industry, but also as an energy source. At the same time, the forest laws call for its management to be closer to nature , in order to preserve habitats for rare species, as well as recreational areas for people. For forest owners , the regionally possible consequences of climate change are changing , e. B. water scarcity, but also cost pressure and market changes the conditions for sustainable development . You have to make decisions for the future that meet all requirements as much as possible, and at the same time face the growing risks that lie in an unpredictable development. The risk of wrong decisions is therefore great.
A possible strategy to reduce risks is seen in the economy in diversification . For the forests of the future, this would mean, among other things, not to establish monotonous pure stands with just one tree species, but to develop forest communities rich in tree species and structures that keep as many development paths open for the future.
Scientific basis
For this purpose, one can use a special property of forest ecosystems , which is called ecological plasticity (Jenssen et al. 2007). Forests can adapt to changes in the environment under certain conditions in such a way that functional and structural properties such as productivity and a closed canopy or the balanced microclimate are maintained. Forests achieve adaptation through a gradual change in their species composition. The change is limited by the physiological range of the individual tree species and their genetic diversity. The higher the diversity of species and genes, the better the adaptability of a tree population. The species composition of a tree population is particularly high when each tree species that occurs in it has a large ecological range, i.e. H. is euryök . A climatically plastic forest should therefore cover as wide a range of probable environmental scenarios as possible by choosing a suitable tree species (Jenssen 2009).
Basics for silvicultural practice
The almost 40 tree species that have made their home in northern Central Europe since the last Ice Age also cover a wide range of climatic conditions thanks to their wide range of geographic origins. This presumably means that there is a sufficient number of tree species to build a climate-plastic forest that takes into account the particular characteristics of the location. It is hoped that such a forest can adapt to the predicted rise in temperature with little effort from forest support.
Table: Important tree species in the climatic plastic forest
| Botanical name | Scientific name |
|---|---|
| Sycamore maple | Acer pseudoplatanus |
| Mountain elm | Ulmus glabra |
| rowan | Sorbus aucuparia |
| Service tree | Sorbus torminalis |
| Field maple | Acer campestre |
| Flutter elm | Ulmus laevis |
| Common ash | Fraxinus excelsior |
| Hornbeam | Carpinus betulus |
| European beech | Fagus sylvatica |
| Sand birch | Betula pendula |
| Summer lime tree | Tilia platyphyllos |
| Norway maple | Acer platanoides |
| Holly | Ilex aquifolium |
| English oak | Quercus robur |
| Grape oak | Quercus petraea |
| Bird cherry | Prunus avium |
| Forest pine | Pinus sylvestris |
| Hawthorn | Crataegus spp. |
| Wild apple | Malus sylvestris |
| Wild pear | Pyrus pyraster |
| Winter linden | Tilia cordata |
Investigations to review the mission statement
A scientific concept is only suitable as a model if the consequences of its application have been assessed and the feasibility of its implementation has been agreed with the respective decision-makers. The model of the climaplastic forest was examined in a joint project funded by the BMBF . Using the example of the Schorfheide-Chorin region , the opportunities and risks of forest development consistently based on the model were assessed under two different climate scenarios up to the year 2100. The computer simulations for this region gave clear indications of advantages compared to previous forest management , including for the water balance , carbon storage (Jochheim & Puhlmann 2009) and the protection of valuable habitats . The overall balance of climate-damaging trace gases is roughly the same in all scenarios; the amount of raw wood by the end of the century would decrease slightly if the spectrum of wood species broadened (end of 2009; Ende et al. 2009).
However, because the gradual reconstruction of a forest takes several decades, some of the desired effects would only take effect in the second half of the century. It was therefore recommended to start adaptation measures immediately. The concept was discussed in a landscape workshop (Anders et al. 2007) under economic, ecological and social aspects with stakeholders, including land owners, and jointly developed.
In order to ensure the implementation of the model in the model region in the long term, accompanying educational measures were carried out in schools and vocational training (Aenis et al. 2010).
Web links
- The funding priority "Sustainable Forest Management" of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research [1]
- The Internet portal Forest & Climate of the Thuringian State Institute for Forests [2]
- Volker Mrasek : German forest - little trees, switch! , Deutschlandfunk - " Science in Focus " of March 29, 2015 (June 1, 2014)
Individual evidence
- ^ Council for Sustainable Development: Forestry as a model for sustainable development: a new focus for the national sustainability strategy. Recommendations of the Council for Sustainable Development to the Federal Government. In: texte no. 10, June 2004, page 2. URL: PDF ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 31, 2009)
- ↑ Jenssen M., Hofmann G., Pommer U .: The natural vegetation potentials of Brandenburg as the basis of climate-plastic future forests . In: Bouffier VA & Gandert K.-D. (Ed.): Contributions to Wood Science 2007 . HDR, Rinteln 2009, ISBN 3-928521-27-5 , pp. 17-29. Online version URL: PDF
- ↑ Jenssen M .: The climatic plastic forest in the northeast German lowlands. Final report on the BMBF research project 0330562H . Waldkunde-Institut Eberswalde, Bad Freienwalde, 2009, 119 pp.
- ↑ Jochheim H., Puhlmann, M .: Sustainable Development of Forest Landscapes in the Northeast German Lowlands - Consequences for C-Sequestration . In: Symposium Active Climate Protection and Adaptation to Climate Change - Contributions from Agriculture and Forestry. vTI, Braunschweig 2009, online version URL: PDF ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 67 (accessed August 31, 2009)
- ^ End of H.-P .: Climatic forests for regions with a future - the NEWAL-NET research association . In: Forest and Wood . 64, issue 10, 2009 ISSN 0932-9315 , pp. 11-13.
- ↑ Ende H.-P., Aenis T., Anders K., Elsasser P., Gasche R., Heinrich U., Jenssen M., Jochheim H., Klenke R., Natkhin M .: Climatic forests in the north-east German lowlands . In: Symposium Active Climate Protection and Adaptation to Climate Change - Contributions from Agriculture and Forestry. vTI, Braunschweig 2009, online version URL: PDF ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 82 (accessed August 31, 2009)
- ↑ Anders K., Fischer L., Jenssen M., Ende H.-P .: A forest type of the future in the landscape workshop . In: AFZ The forest . 62, issue 22, 2007 ISSN 0002-5860 , pp. 1206-1209.
- ↑ Aenis, T., Ende, H.-P., Foos, E., Nagel, UJ (Hrsg.) (2010): Climatic forests in the northeast German lowlands. Guide to Education for Sustainable Development. Humboldt University of Berlin. URN: urn: nbn: de: kobv: 11-100174269 Online version URL: PDF (accessed on September 9, 2010)
