FW-R-6: Silvicultural information on the theme of adaptation | Umweltbundesamt

FW-R-6: Silvicultural information on the theme of adaptation

To date, there is no bundled information available nationwide regarding the extent and intensity of silvicultural advice. The increasing number of articles published in the practice-oriented journal ‘AFZ DerWald’ on climate change, conveys a rough idea of the intensity of relevant discussions among forestry professionals. Especially in relation to the extreme drought years of 2018 to 2020, there have been distinctly more expert articles available.

Silvicultural information on the subject of adaptation

In view of climate change, forestry will be confronted with immense challenges in the next few decades. Numerous practical development and management issues will arise in connection with the adaptation of forests including the choice of tree species, the technical implementation of forest transformation and the adoption of suitable measures for a targeted approach to tending forests. Action is required not only in state and corporation forests but also in private forests as the latter comprises roughly 48 % of Germany’s entire forest terrain¹²².

In many cases, proprietors of private forests own comparatively small areas, on average comprising less than 10 ha. These proprietors have their focus mostly on matters not pertaining to forestry, thus managing their forests very much on the basis of their own individual and rather disparate objectives. In most cases, the commercial incentive to engage with silvicultural concepts, and to acquire the appropriate knowledge, is rather scant. As far as tending and developing forests is concerned, these are rather unfavourable conditions.

In the past, the yields attainable from forest management – including any existing funding available to forest proprietors – were usually sufficient to cover the burdens of forest protection, reforestation and road safety obligations. However, in many cases, the large-scale forest damage incurred in recent years has distinctly reduced the operating capital available to forest proprietors. Those enterprises that are heavily affected are not likely to make a profit from their timber yields for decades to come. On the other hand, there are social aspects at stake in private forests too, which require sustainable forest management, adapted to the new climatic framework conditions, thus leading to the maintenance or even improvement of ecosystem services rendered by forests.¹²³

Against this background – and apart from the expansion of financial support (cf. Indicator FW-R-1) – the advisory services offered to private forest proprietors by silvicultural experts play an important part. Such advice must create the prerequisites for the management of private forests to make its own useful contribution to the adaptation of forests. In this light it is essentialto be aware that it is not possible to transfer the cultivation processes created for and applied in extensive, self-contained and intensively managed state-owned forest complexes in exactly the same way to private forest management, because the baseline conditions are often very different. For example, spruce-dominated stands are often particularly unstable owing to a lack of appropriate thinning. Given the small size of some forest terrain and the unfavourable development of stands, protective measures against browsing by game, such as fencing are usually too labour-intensive and too expensive. Besides, many forest owners continue to find it hard to part with their traditional spruce cultivation or they simply lack the knowledge or time to consider any options of site-adapted forest cultivation.

Silvicultural advice is provided by numerous different organisations. In the individual Länder for instance, there are state forest administration authorities, state forest management offices and forestry associations as well as forest owner associations that are able to impart such advice. Generally speaking, the entire field of silvicultural consultation is as diverse as it is confusing. It is therefore impossible for private forest proprietors to access any collective information, ‘bundled’ on a nationwide basis regarding the form, extent or intensity of silvicultural advice.

Important organs for the dissemination of relevant information are trade journals which are read in particular by forestry practitioners. One of these forestry journals is entitled ‘AFZ Der-Wald’ which contains concise articles in German and is therefore most effective in terms of reaching the German-speaking public. Articles published in this journal on the subject of climate change and relevant adaptation are read by a very wide circle of readers who engage with forestry management issues.

In many cases the subjects of climate protection and adaptation to climate change have also been addressed in articles published in journals, which means that a definitive attribution regarding adaptation is not always possible. As of 2018, when it became clear that drought and heat would have severe impacts on forests, a multitude of articles were published dealing specifically with these issues. Even though the terms ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ are not always mentioned explicitly, the connections with climate change impacts are obvious. As of 2020, the number of articles with references to climate change was twice as high as even in the two years of 2017 and 2018. The thematic spectrum ranged from the analysis of forest conditions and the situation regarding forest protection to recommendations on how to deal with pest organisms, how to treat calamity areas, how to select tree species for the future, as well as wildlife management and risk management in general, while also addressing the question of impacts on the timber market.

The data make it possible to infer that issues concerned with climate change have by now gained high priority in practice-oriented discussions among circles of forestry professionals. At the same time, it is not reasonable to infer to what extent such discussions and recommendations are followed up by tangible implementation into practice, especially insofar as the management of private forests is concerned.

^{122 - BMEL – Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft 2014: Der Wald in Deutschland – Ausgewählte Ergebnisse der dritten Bundeswaldinventur. Berlin, 56 pp. https://www.bmel.de/DE/themen/wald/wald-in-deutschland/bundeswaldinventur.html.} 

^{123 - BMEL 2021: Waldstrategie 2050. Nachhaltige Waldbewirtschaftung – Herausforderungen und Chancen für Mensch, Natur und Klima. Bonn, 55 pp. https://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/_Wald/Waldstrategie2050.html?j_internal_customer=BMEL.}