A douglas fir grows in the eco-camp in Hasselfelde, a real-life open-air laboratory or experimental forest that seeks to work out how different tree species develop and thrive in changing climate conditions. Photo: Matthias Bein/dpa
With its lush greenery, fresh breezes and chirpy birdsong, to Werner Gutbier, it feels like paradise when he enters the eco-camp he planted decades ago.
A forester by profession, Gutbier planted his eco-camp on what was a meadow when he started working nearby, eager to see a greater diversity of tree species.
At that point, 30 years ago, his work in the area of the Harz mountains in Germany had revealed mainly spruce and few beech trees.
"I wanted to see if something else would grow under these conditions," he says. He calls the site an eco-camp, where "eco" refers to both ecology and economy, because as he sees it, in Germany, the forest has always been a place for timber production.
Gutbier and his team planted the first seedlings in the early 1990s. Alongside spruces, pines and beech trees, they also planted more exotic species such as the Caucasus spruce or Korean fir.
In all, he and his staff brought 80 tree and 20 shrub species to the meadow near Hasselfelde.
One man's experimental woodland tests whether the sequoia might thrive as the weather warms up. Photos: Insa Sanders/dpa
Might the progress of the trees in his small woodland suggest which species could flourish amid the changing environmental conditions in this part of Europe?
Looking at what has prospered 30 years later, some rows have thinned out. The spruce, a tree typical for the Harz region, has completely disappeared. So have 11 other tree species, including the pine and several firs. Drought and bark beetles have taken their toll.
"The trees all died," Gutbier says.Damage due to extreme weather remains at a high level in the state forests, according to the Forestry Ministry of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
New areas without trees extended by 2,200ha in the first half of 2022 alone, a spokesperson said. Some 1.5 million solid cubic metres of wood were felled.
The areas most affected are the Harz mountains and the hilly areas of eastern Saxony-Anhalt with its sandy soils. Trees died mainly due to drought, insect and fungal damage, with all of the main species affected, not just the spruce, as a typical shallow-rooted tree.
But on Gutbier's patch, other species of trees coped much better. His sequoias are huge, their branches reaching high in the sky.
"We have several sequoias here," says Gutbier. "The sequoia defies the wind, the drought and the bark beetle."Like the coastal fir, the redwood comes from North America and both are handling the changing conditions well.
Trees like the sequoia may do better, according to one man's research in Germany, as the climate changes gradually with global warming.
"The coast fir grows fast. It is the thickest tree here and therefore also interesting for the economy."Does that mean Germany's forestry workers should be planting coastal firs in future? The downside is that young coastal fir trees are a treat for red deer and roe deer, meaning they need to be fenced in. That level of protection will be hard to deliver, given how thinly staffed most forestry operations are.
Gutbier was surprised when another tree grew that he hadn't planted, Birds must have brought it, he says.
"This is the aspen or quaking aspen," says the forester. "It, too, has grown well, rejuvenates quickly, and thrives on the nutrients in the soil here and no storm, no bark beetle can harm it."So far, the aspen has not been cultivated in the eastern Harz.
"We should change that in future," says Gutbier.In all, weighing which tree species cope well with the new weather conditions, Gutbier lists native species such as the European larch, the sycamore maple and the copper beech. Meanwhile from abroad, he swears by coastal fir and sequoia.
He has documented his experiences in detail, and was supported in his research by a forest scientist Horst Kurth, who died recently. His grandson Clemens Kurth also helped document their activities as a student. Now he too is a district forester in Lower Saxony and reflects fondly on the work he did for the project 15 years ago.
"The eco-camp does not have the same scientific value as a permanent experimental area," he says. "The potential would undoubtedly be there; you could gain a lot of knowledge."
But that would require continued scientific monitoring.Kurth would like to see young forest scientists study the eco-camp site, perhaps as part of a graduate degree thesis. He happily thinks back to how hard he and his grandfather and Gutbier observed and documented all the progress the trees made in that small green area.
Unfortunately, Kurth says, far less work was done documenting progress beyond 2006.
"That's bitter and it hurts," he says, but he doesn't want to reproach his colleagues in Saxony-Anhalt, knowing only too well the vast tracts of land they look after in their day jobs with little help."When I see the huge areas the foresters in Saxony-Anhalt have to look after with how few workers, I really don't envy them. The eco-camp is nice to have, but not a must. The capacities are simply not there."
One thing is clear, though, he says.
"The time of monocultures is over." – dpa
