Process protection
Process protection is a nature conservation strategy that was coined by the German forest ecologist Knut Sturm. In the narrower sense, it is based on not intervening in the natural processes of ecosystems . In a broader sense, this also includes the integration of nature conservation concerns in environmentally friendly forms of use of cultural landscapes. The process protection strategy is not suitable for maintaining unchangeable target states, as is the case with various maintenance strategies . Instead, the focus is on maintaining the naturally dynamic processes that lead to new - not exactly predictable - system states.
In this context, natural and usage-related disruptions (such as storms , wild fires , overaging trees, pests, etc.) are of great importance for such development dynamics. In the process, individual habitat types or parts of them are repeatedly destroyed, but at the same time they create new life situations and change the structure of competition between the species. The succession begins anew, regeneration cycles are newly realized or modified. The natural selection is stimulated, then the gene pool , the species involved regenerate and the dynamic balance of the ecosystem is stabilized.
In principle, process protection is a reflection of the natural processes in the wilderness . However, a distinction is made between segregative and integrative process protection.
Concepts
Only with segregative process protection is the completely uncontrolled natural development into wilderness-like habitats the focus. It is mainly used to restore wilderness-like areas in cultivated landscapes (see wilderness development areas ). The segregative process protection follows the cultural conception of nature that wilderness arises autopoietically .
Across Europe, the European Wilderness Society is endeavoring to establish process protection for large wilderness (development) areas in the core zones of existing national parks and other large protected areas.
Besides the aforementioned wilderness development areas of the approach of the process protection is also in national parks , as in the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park , National Park basement Edersee or Bavarian Forest National Park as a model used.
With integrative process protection, an assessment and selection of the natural processes takes place, which are allowed or prevented according to the formulated goals of a certain landscape development. However, in the original sense, this only applied to limited, mosaic-like sub-areas in commercial forests. This means that the natural dynamics of "wilderness (read: primeval forest) islands" in the commercial forest should be used.
Nature conservation definition according to Jedicke
The current process protection definition according to Eckhard Jedicke 1998: "Process protection means maintaining natural processes (ecological changes in space and time) in the form of dynamic phenomena on the level of species, biocenoses, biotopes or ecotopes, ecosystems and landscapes. Process protection aims both on receipt
- anthropogenic uncontrolled dynamics on at least currently unused areas under the influence of succession processes on locations changed or influenced by humans, which can lead to more natural stages (process protection in the narrower sense or segregative process protection) as well
- of use processes that require a cultural landscape dynamic with positive effects on nature conservation goals (of species and biocenosis, biotope, abiotic resource and cultural landscape protection) as a side effect, without targeted maintenance interventions taking place (use process protection or integrative process protection). "
development
The basis for the idea of process protection was the revision of the paradigm of " ecological balance " from the 1970s . In his 1990 book Discordant Harmonies, the US conservation biologist Daniel Botkin demonstrated the failure of many scientifically based management efforts in US national parks and fisheries management due to outdated conservation myths. He advocated the protection of natural processes . In 1992, Steward Picket suggested the concept of "flux of nature" . Important for the new perspective that was cyclic succession of Hermann Remmert . It replaced the idea of an ecological balance and made it clear how much the evaluation of an ecosystem depends on the definition of stability as well as on the level and period of observation.
Criticism and conflict
The nature conservation biologist Reinhard Piechocki argues that the protection of “natural processes” is also dominated by human ideas; especially from a certain image of the " wilderness ". This criticism relates both to the integrative process protection, which specifies a selection of permitted processes, and to the segregative process protection, because in the designation of protected areas, the wilderness firstly (negatively) in contrast to the initial stage, which is not wilderness, determines and secondly, it is viewed as desirable based on certain cultural patterns.
"Although the process protection claims to argue primarily scientifically, it does not break away from the holistic, organicistic conceptions of nature, because ultimately it is not about the protection of ecological processes per se, but about the realization of ideal-typical, wilderness-shaped images of nature."
In the implementation process protection is aimed more in order to achieve other goals. This is the case, for example, in the National Strategy on Biological Diversity (NBS) adopted by the (then) federal government in 2007 . The protection of the processes is given priority there with the protection of biodiversity (see wilderness ). The hope is that the natural processes will lead to a higher biodiversity, which is unlikely to occur in some of the potential process protection areas outlined in the NBS (namely post-mining landscapes and former military training areas ) (because with the inevitable transition from open land biotopes to forest) Biodiversity decline must be expected). The use of semi-wild grazing animals (e.g. Koniks, Galloway, but also red deer) could be an effective means of promoting biodiversity through natural processes, especially in cultural landscapes that are dominated by anthropogenic influences. However, this strategy is currently rather rejected by the actors, which may be due to a different, more puristic idea of process protection.
Lay rate process protection, which can sometimes cause conflicts often negative than "mere nothing". For example, For example, process protection in the Bavarian Forest National Park (which has been affected by severe bark beetle infestation since the mid-1990s ) has led to heated discussions between supporters and opponents of the concept.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eckhard Jedicke: Space-Time Dynamics in Ecosystems and Landscapes, Nature Conservation and Landscape Planning 30 (1998), pp. 229, 233.
- ↑ Knut Sturm: Process protection - a concept for natural forest management. In: Journal for Ecology and Nature Conservation. 2, 1993, pp. 181-192.
- ↑ Eckhard Jedicke: Space-time dynamics in ecosystems and landscapes. In: Nature conservation and landscape planning. 8/9, 1998, p. 233. Quoted in Hans Jürgen Böhmer: In the next forest everything will be different. 1999 ( Web text ( Memento of the original from October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ).
- ↑ Quoted from Reinhard Piechocki: Landscape - Homeland - Wilderness: Protection of Nature - but which and why? Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-54152-0 (= Becksche series. Volume 1711). P. 108.
- ↑ Reinhard Piechocki: Landscape - Home - Wilderness: Protection of Nature - but which one and why? Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-54152-0 (= Becksche series. Volume 1711). Page 110.
- ↑ Nicolas Schoof, Rainer Luick, Herbert Nickel, Albert Reif, Marc Förschler, Paul Westrich, Edgar Reisinger: Promoting biodiversity with wild pastures in the "wilderness areas" vision of the National Strategy for Biological Diversity . 7th edition. No. 93 . Nature and Landscape, 2018, p. 314-322 ( researchgate.net ).
