Private forest

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If the forest is not owned by cities, municipalities (see corporate forest ), churches or in the hands of the state ( state forest ), one speaks of private forest . So it is a forest owned by natural or legal persons or partnerships .

Classification

In forest science , the private forest is divided into various sub-categories.

These categories, which are based on the size of the individual forest holdings, are in Germany:

  • Smallest private forest (size: less than 5 hectares )
  • Small private forest (size: 5 - 200 hectares)
  • Medium private forest (size: 200 - 1,000 hectares)
  • Large private forest (size: over 1,000 hectares), which only takes up about 6 percent of the forest area of ​​the old federal states. In the GDR territory, however, the Protestant churches had over 30,000 hectares of private forest and an important forest administration with their own costumes and badges.

The following categories apply in Austria:

  • Small forest (up to 200 ha)
  • Large forest (more than 200 ha)

Emergence

Private forests often have different origins.

  • Large private forests were mainly created because mediatized lords (e.g. princely houses) were allowed to keep their forest holdings almost entirely.
    These include, for example, the Thurn und Taxis forest, Germany's largest forest owned by a private person with 28,000 hectares (according to an information in 2012; according to own information in 2010: after a major sale to Adolf Merckle , still 20,000 hectares). In Austria, the Mayr-Melnhof property , which is just as large, is the success of a bourgeois entrepreneurial dynasty . The Habsburg possessions have merged into the federal forests.
  • Medium-sized private forests were created (and are being created) either through the division of large private forests (e.g. through inheritance or sale), but primarily through the sale of forest areas
    Examples are the new federal states of Germany: In the course of the land reform between 1945 and 1949, land was withdrawn from landowners in the Soviet occupation zone and distributed to refugees and former farmers ( Junker land in peasant hands ). After the fall of the Berlin Wall , it was decided not to return the GDR's private forest to its original owners, but to sell it to new private owners with the help of a trust company. Most of the time, areas between 200 and 1000 hectares were created.
  • Small and very small private forests emerged in most cases from peasant forests. In the 19th century, the areas that until then had been jointly farmed as commons were divided among the entitled farmers. In order to guarantee a fair distribution of the forest area, the farmers usually did not receive one parcel, but several parcels of different soil quality and forest cover. In areas of real division (southern Germany, Austria), the sometimes very small plots of land were also divided, which led to the parceling and fragmentation of the forest area, which makes management impossible today.

Private forest in Europe

Germany

48.0 percent of the total of around 11.4 million hectares of forest in Germany is privately owned. The private forest has the largest share of ownership with 66.8 percent of the forest area in North Rhine-Westphalia , the smallest share with only 24.5 percent in Hessen . There are almost 2 million private forest owners in Germany. The average size of German private forests is 3 hectares. While only 13 percent of the private forest area is in the property size class over 1,000 hectares, 50 percent of the area and 98 percent of the owners are in small private forests up to 20 hectares in size. The DBU Heritage GmbH has approximately 60,000 hectares of total area (including open land) is the largest private forest owner in Germany. Around 150,000 hectares of forest are cultivated by the churches in Germany, distributed among over 6,500 legal entities ( parishes , monasteries , foundations, dioceses ). Even if the churches are largely public corporations , the church forest is a private forest.

state Private forest area up to 20 ha Private forest area over 20 to 50 ha Private forest area over 50 to 100 ha Private forest area over 100 to 200 hectares Private forest area over 200 to 500 ha Private forest area over 500 to 1,000 ha Private forest area over 1,000 ha Total private forest area a
Baden-Württemberg 242,232 ha 50,628 ha 28,516 ha 19,210 ha 20,611 ha 17,510 ha 114,162 ha 492,869 ha
Bavaria 950,045 ha 159,527 ha 69,758 ha 49,359 ha 61,725 ​​ha 49,726 ha 110,839 ha 1,450,979 ha
Brandenburg + Berlin 254,678 ha 75,021 ha 35,536 ha 31,193 ha 69,493 ha 70,678 ha 102,661 ha 668,479 ha
Hamburg + Bremen 6,725 ha - 791 ha - - - - 7,516 ha
Hesse 67,983 ha 5,999 ha 9,998 ha 18,395 ha 26,793 ha 19,595 ha 69,983 ha 218,746 ha
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 64,575 ha 16,591 ha 17,286 ha 28,115 ha 32,188 ha 19,968 ha 15,200 ha 220,646 ha
Lower Saxony 314,954 ha 98,615 ha 74,322 ha 66,339 ha 67,928 ha 29,790 ha 54,875 ha 706,823 ha
North Rhine-Westphalia 239,010 ha 59,255 ha 48,916 ha 37,780 ha 62,437 ha 37,383 ha 122,885 ha 607,666 ha
Rhineland-Palatinate 154,401 ha 5,475 ha 6,968 ha 11,349 ha 17,322 ha 11,448 ha 17,322 ha 224,284 ha
Saarland 20,370 ha 783 ha 1,175 ha 783 ha 5,484 ha 783 ha - 29,380 ha
Saxony 127,371 ha 11,362 ha 10,166 ha 9,966 ha 25,913 ha 16,544 ha 29,102 ha 240,790 ha
Saxony-Anhalt 121,064 ha 27,102 ha 12,555 ha 16,740 ha 29,394 ha 32,782 ha 25,608 ha 289,257 ha
Schleswig-Holstein 39,788 ha 4,687 ha 4,986 ha 6,881 ha 8,775 ha 9,972 ha 13,961 ha 89,050 ha
Thuringia 130,193 ha 13,984 ha 12,555 ha 12,799 ha 14,534 ha 12,607 ha 27,534 ha 239,193 ha
Germany as a whole 2,733,389 ha 529,029 ha 333,526 ha 308,910 ha 442,597 ha 328,787 ha 704,132 ha 5,485,679 ha
a including private forest without specifying the property size class

Liechtenstein

In Liechtenstein , with 6,865 hectares, around 43 percent of the country's area is covered with forest. Of these, 8 percent are privately owned.

Austria

In Austria there are around 145,000 private forest owners who manage over 80 percent of Austria's total forest area. According to the land registry evaluations from 2013, the Austrian private forest is divided as follows:

  • Private forest under 200 hectares (including church forest): 1,827,729 hectares with an average farm size of 9.2 hectares
  • Private forest over 200 hectares (including church forest): 786,795 hectares
  • Community forest (e.g. agricultural communities ): 351,471 hectares

The Austrian Forest Inventory (ÖWI) recorded the forest by other criteria than the cadastral and has for the survey period 2007 to 2009, a total forest area in Austria of 3,991,000 hectares. Around 3.268 million hectares or 82.0 percent of this is private forest:

  • Small private forest under 200 hectares: 2.153 million hectares or 54.0 percent of the total forest area
  • Private forest 200 - 1,000 hectares: 386,000 hectares or 9.7 percent of the total forest area
  • Private forest> 1,000 hectares: 729,000 hectares or 18.3 percent of the total forest area

Classification of small forest owners in Austria

  • 40% are “traditional forest owners” such as farmers or part-time farmers.
  • 28% are “transitional types” such as small townspeople with an agricultural background or those who have dropped out of work
  • 32% are "new forest owners". This group consists of farm dropouts, urban forest owners and non-agricultural forest owners.

In a recent study, three types of forest owners were distinguished. The use-oriented forest owners (59%), leisure-related (30%), and the traditional forest owners (9%). The groups differ with regard to the frequency of forest visits, the size of the property, the level of upbringing and the gender

Poland

The forests of Poland cover 9,163,800 hectares and thus cover 29.3 percent of the country's area. 18.8 percent of the Polish forest area is privately owned.

Switzerland

In Switzerland , 30 percent of the 1.31 million hectares of forest are privately owned. 240,000 or 97 percent of the roughly 250,000 Swiss forest owners are private individuals. The average forest area is 1.42 hectares.

European Union

In the European Union (EU-28) around 158.8 million hectares are forested. 59.7 percent of these are privately owned. Portugal has the highest share of private forests with 98.4 percent, the lowest Bulgaria with 13.2 percent.

literature

  • Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL, ed.): The forest in Germany - selected results of the third national forest inventory. Berlin 2014. ( Online version , PDF; 5 MB)
  • Hans Leibundgut : Silviculture in private forests. Suggestions and tips for successful forest maintenance for forest owners . Haupt, Bern / Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-258-04082-6 .
  • Jochen Berlit: Operating concept for the management of a private forest . (= Taxation practice: F, Forestry. Volume 14). Expert board of trustees for agriculture, forestry, horticulture, land maintenance, viticulture, inland fishing, horse keeping. SVK-Verlag, Erndtebrück 1996, ISBN 3-89061-106-0 .
  • Ulrich Schraml, Karl-Reinhard Volz (Ed.): Urban forest owners. Studies on advice and support in non-farming small private forests . (= Freiburg writings on forest and environmental policy. Volume 1). Kessel, Remagen-Oberwinter 2003, ISBN 3-935638-27-2 .
  • Karl-Reinhard Volz : Who actually owns the forest? In: he citizen in the state. 1, 2001, p. 51ff. The German forest. ( Online version ; PDF; 3.6 MB)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Forestry of the Eastern Evangelical Churches: between 1945 and 1991, Fred Ruchhöft and Kurt Winkelmann Foundation, BoD - Books on Demand, 2012.
  2. ↑ To this day, some princely houses hold the largest private forest holdings in Germany: Thurn und Taxis: 20,000 hectares, Fürstenberg: 18,000 hectares, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen: 15,000 hectares, Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg: 15,000 hectares, Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg: 13,100 hectares, Oettingen- Wallerstein: 11,000 hectares, Waldburg-Zeil: 10,000 hectares and in Austria: Esterházy: 28,300 hectares, Liechtenstein: 24,000 hectares, Schwarzenberg: 23,280 hectares. Source: Wald-Prinz.de on June 28, 2014: Forest owners: Who owns the forest?
  3. ↑ Wald-Prinz.de on July 20, 2012: Forest Owner: Who owns the forest?
  4. ↑ Christine Mattauch on December 26, 2010 in Wirtschaftswoche : Gloria von Thurn und Taxis: "We are the land of misgivings"
  5. ↑ Results database of the Third National Forest Inventory (2012) . Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  6. ^ H. Polley, P. Hennig: Forest ownership in the mirror of the national forest inventory. In: AFZ-The forest. 6/2015.
  7. ↑ BMEL (ed.): The forest in Germany - selected results of the third national forest inventory. P. 9f. Online version (PDF; 5 MB)
  8. ↑ K. Giesen: Who Owns the German Forest? In: AFZ-The forest. 9/2015.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h Results database of the Third National Forest Inventory (2012) . Retrieved November 5, 2015.
  10. ^ Office for Forests, Nature and Landscape of the Principality of Liechtenstein: Landeswaldinventar 2012 . Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  11. ↑ Eurostat TBRFA 200, according to Austria's forest is firmly in private hands ( memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) , waldwissen.net
  12. ^ Ministry for an Austria worth living in (ed.): Sustainable forest management in Austria - data collection on Austrian forests. February, as of 2015, table 1.1 online version ( memento from November 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved October 21, 2015.
  13. ^ Austrian Forest Inventory (ÖWI) . Retrieved October 29, 2015.
  14. ^ Gerhard Weiss, Karl Hogl, Ewald Rametsteiner, Walter Sekot: Private forest in Austria - newly discovered | Private forest property in Austria - newly discovered . In: Swiss journal for forestry . tape 158 , no. 9 , September 2007, p. 293–301 , doi : 10.3188 / szf.2007.0293 ( szf-jfs.org [PDF; accessed November 13, 2019]).
  15. ↑ Ulrike Pröbstl-Haider, Nina Mostegl, Robert Jandl, Herbert Formayer, W Haider, K Pukall, V Melzer ,: readiness for climate change adaptation by small forest owners in Austria . In: General forest and hunting newspaper . tape 188 , no. 7/8 , 2017, p. 113-126 .
  16. ^ Polish State Forests: The state forests in figures 2013. S. 5. Accessed October 22, 2015.
  17. ↑ Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN, ed.): Forest Report 2015 . P. 100. Retrieved February 24, 2020.
  18. ↑ Eurostat (ed.): Agriculture, forestry and fishery statistics 2014 edition. P. 143. ( Online version . Accessed October 21, 2015)