Dryness - Trees still severely damaged after years of extreme weather
The forest in Saxony-Anhalt continues to be severely damaged by the drought of recent years. "The forest is not doing well," said Saxony-Anhalt Forestry Minister Sven Schulze (CDU) on Tuesday at the presentation of this year's Forest Condition Report. "It is still at an extremely poor level." At 26 percent, the average crown thinning, which is an important indicator of the condition of the trees, remained at the high level of previous years in 2023. At eleven percent, a very high proportion of trees were classified as very severely damaged.
Since 2019, the damage to all tree species has risen sharply. Spruce in particular has an extremely high proportion of severely damaged trees with 66 percent crown thinning, explained Ulrike Talkner, Head of the Environmental Control Department at the Northwest German Forest Research Institute (NW-FVA). According to the Ministry of Forestry, spruce is the most common tree species in the low mountain range. Only two percent of the spruce trees in the state still have a full crown, Talkner emphasized. There is a small ray of hope this year, however, because the damage was not quite as severe.
"We are seeing a clear influence of climate change on the state of the forest in Saxony-Anhalt," said Talkner. With an average temperature of 10.8 degrees Celsius, this year was one of the warmest years since 1881. The previous years had all been significantly too warm and the distribution of precipitation across the state had been very uneven. The opportunity must now be seized to convert the forest into climate-stable mixed forests.
According to the Ministry of Forestry, the state is providing around 11.8 million euros for the reforestation of clear-cut areas. Although this is more than a drop in the ocean, it is not enough for rapid reforestation. It is a task that will take several decades, said Forestry Minister Schulze.
There are around 462,000 hectares of forest in Saxony-Anhalt, which is around 26 percent of the state's area. There are more than 50,000 private forest owners in the state, the majority of whom are small private owners.
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Source: www.stern.de
