Neuchâtel jungle
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Neuchâtel jungle
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 Trees on the main path form a natural gate |
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| location | South of Zetel , Friesland district , Lower Saxony | |
| surface | 48.5 ha | |
| Identifier | NSG WE 064 | |
| WDPA ID | 82234 | |
| FFH area | 48.5 ha | |
| Geographical location | 53 ° 24 ' N , 7 ° 59' E | |
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| Sea level | from 4 m to 10 m | |
| Setup date | July 13, 1938 | |
| administration | NLWKN | |
The Neuchâtel jungle is a former nature reserve in the Friesland district in Lower Saxony . It is located on the Frisian Wehde within the “ Neuenburger Holz ” forest area between the villages of Neuenburg , Zetel and Bockhorn .
Nature reserve
The former nature reserve "Neuenburger Urwald" (identification: NSG WE 064) is part of the FFH area 009 "Neuenburger Holz". The lower nature conservation authority of the district of Friesland is responsible. According to the ordinance, the size of the former nature reserve was 48.5 hectares . In 2019 the area was incorporated into the newly designated “Neuenburger Holz” nature reserve.
The forest area was reduced to around 24 hectares by logging firewood during the war and post-war years. In some areas, after this deforestation, non-site coniferous trees were planted, but the responsible forest administration has now replaced them with local stocks. Today, the forest consists largely of beech and oak.
history
The Neuchâtel jungle within the Neuchâtel wood is the remainder of an old Hudewald . Only since the later Middle Ages has information been available about forest use and the condition of the forest. The forest used to belong to the so-called commons and was jointly owned by the village community and was subject to the use of wood, the use of the land (such as raking leaves or pest extraction to gain litter for the cattle sheds) and forest pasture.
In 1462 that rose Oldenburg Graf Gerd the courageous entitled to until then to county Ostfriesland belonging Frisian Wehde and expanded by building the castle Neuenburg his domain from. Since then, the forest area has belonged to the Oldenburg family.
Count Anton Günther von Oldenburg was the first ruler to take correct protective measures for his forests in 1630. During this time the demand for wood grew steadily and the exploitation of the forests increased sharply. The forest ordinances for the forests of his county Oldenburg regulated the use of the forest and from 1656 also laid down regulations for reforestation for the first time. Despite the regulations, wood thefts occurred again and again. In a report by Oberförster von Witzleben from 1676, it says: "This Holtz is the best and largest in both counties, all oak trees, but it was very much beaten by the thieves."
From the year 1705 there is a report about the “Neuchâtel wood”: “The ground is good and here, like in all other places, there is a lack of industrious planting and although this bush is covered all around, the walls are almost under the feet, that everything Cattle can graze in it unhindered. The cattle bitter and destroyed the forest by rarely allowing undergrowth to appear. "
In 1850, at the request of the Oldenburg rulers, the Neuchâtel jungle was taken out of forest use. In 1880 the Neuchâtel jungle was protected as a natural monument. At the end of the 19th century the forest pasture lost more and more of its importance. Shortly after the turn of the century, the cattle drive into the Neuchâtel jungle finally came to an end. On June 26, 1935, the Reich Nature Conservation Act was enacted and the “Neuchâtel Primeval Forest” received the status of a state natural forest reserve in the same year. In 1938 the area was declared a nature reserve.
Geology and soils
Is under the under the "New Burger wood" Grundmoränendecke Beck deposits of clay sediments that during the Elster ice age were deposited from 0.5 to 0.2 million years ago and go deep up to 30 meters. These basin deposits are called Lauenburg clay in northern Germany . In the third stage of the Saale Ice Age from 80,000 to 120,000 BC The inland ice crossed the Lauenburg clay and mixed the top two meters of the Lauenburg clay with the overlying ground moraine sand and other debris. However, this mixing did not take place uniformly. The originally almost black clay was given a yellow-brown color by mixing. This layer above the Lauenburg clay is used as clinker clay for the production of clinker bricks.
Due to the different mixing, the soil-type compositions vary greatly. Occur backwater floors with transitions to other types of soil on how to cambisols , gleys or podsols (floors, where humus and / or iron have been moved into the deeper layers. It emerged typical bleaching and enrichment horizons with Orterde- or Ortseinschichten.)
Flora and fauna
The ancient, mighty oaks with an age of 600 to 800 years and trunk lengths of over six meters are characteristic of the “Neuchâtel Primeval Forest” . After the forest pasture, the decapitation of the hornbeams for leaf hay extraction and the extraction of pests in the forest were stopped, hornbeams and beeches could develop and rejuvenate and fill the clearing between the oaks. In the course of the following decades, they oppressed and towered over the oaks, displacing them more and more. Many of the old oaks are now hollow and rotten, while others have died.
In the "Neuchâtel Primeval Forest", three types of vegetation can be distinguished:
- Beech-oak forest, on poorly nutrient-poor, moderately dry to fresh, also waterlogged soils
- Common beech forest on fresh soils better supplied with nutrients and deeper-lying groundwater
- Oak-hornbeam forest on more or less moist to wet soils well to very well supplied with nutrients
The "Neuchâtel wood" and thus also the nature reserve houses the largest occurrence of oak - hornbeam forest of the East Frisian-Oldenburg Geest. The forest is one of the most important forests in this natural area.
The holly has been found in the Neuchâtel jungle for centuries . It grows tree-like in the forest to over ten meters high and forms real thickets in the shrub layer.
A species-rich forest floor flora has developed in the light oak and hornbeam forest. Wood anemones , chickweed , grasshopper , mountain speedwell , lady fern and thorn fern grow here . The appearance of the herb layer in the common beech forest is clearly determined by species with moderate demands, in particular the common grass , wood sorrel , chickweed and golden nettle . The “Neuchâtel Primeval Forest” with its old and numerous dead trees is rich in wood-dwelling fungi . Well over 30 breeding bird species have so far been identified in the richly structured forest. The proportion of cave breeders is strikingly high , as can only be observed in extensively used forests with older trees.
Excursion destination
Today the "Neuchâtel Primeval Forest" is a popular destination for leisure and recreation. The two communities of Bockhorn and Zetel promote this aspect through various measures. There are two entrances to the nature reserve with signposted parking spaces with information boards. The northern entrance is located directly at the southeast exit of Zetel, the second entrance is at the “Urwaldhof” restaurant in Neuchâtel directly on the federal road 437. From these two entrances, around 15 kilometers of hiking trails open up the jungle on several circular routes. In the middle of the jungle is the “hunting lodge” built in 1950/1951, which is now available to forest visitors as a resting place and shelter.
The jungle in art
Since the middle of the 19th century, the Neuchâtel jungle has also been an increasingly frequent destination for painters who captured individual forest scenes in pictures. In the summer of 1855 , the Weimar painter and etcher Friedrich Preller the Elder , who was famous in his day, went on a study trip to Jever , the home of his student Ernst Hemken , in order to study nature in the nearby Neuchâtel jungle. Julius Preller (1834–1914), a nephew of Friedrich Preller the Elder, who lived in Varel in Frisia , was one of the later painters . Ä., Of which many colored pencil drawings and some paintings with motifs from the Neuchâtel jungle have survived. As a pioneer in nature conservation, Julius Preller campaigned for the preservation of the Neuchâtel jungle. In 1892, for example, he asked not to remove dead wood trunks in order not to endanger the character of the jungle. Other artists are Johann Georg Siehl-Freystett (1868–1919) and the painter Heinrich Bley (1887–1948) from Neuchâtel.
The beauty of the Neuchâtel jungle was captured in particular by the artist Margarethe Francksen-Kruckenberg , known as Gretchen Fancksen. She was born on September 20, 1890 in Varel . After attending the Neuchâtel seminar under Gerbrecht, she worked as a teacher in various places in the Principality of Lübeck , then in various villages not far from the Jade Bay . This was followed by further training in Munich with Walter Thor , at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Frankfurt am Main and finally (1921) with Max Thedy at the Academy in Weimar . In the following years the first pictures of the jungle were made in Neuchâtel until he married the painter Franz Francksen from Tossens in 1924. The artist, who worked on jungle fairy tales, published the book “Stories from the Bird Room” in 1924 and prepared a jungle picture portfolio containing six tree studies and intended to draw attention to the beauty of the jungle.
literature
- Karl-Ernst Behre : The Neuchâtel Primeval Forest - a monument to the cultural landscape , Brune-Mettcker, Wilhelmshaven 2010, ISBN 978-3-930510-38-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ordinance text on the Neuchâtel Primeval Forest nature reserve (NSG WE 064), Section 2, Paragraph 1 of July 9, 1938
- ↑ Cf. Friedrich Preller the Younger , Diaries of the Artist, edited and biographically completed by Max Jordan , Munich 1904, pp. 28ff.
- ↑ See Meike Lücke, History of Nature Conservation in the Oldenburger Land 1880-1934, in: Nature Conservation Has History. Searching for traces in the Oldenburger Land , ed. by the City of Oldenburg in cooperation with the Jade University and the Nature Conservation History Foundation, Oldenburg 2011.
- ^ Karl-Ernst Behre: The Neuchâtel Primeval Forest - a monument to the cultural landscape , Brune-Mettcker, Wilhelmshaven 2010, ISBN 978-3-930510-38-2 , page 75 f.
