But the forests are in a worse condition today than they were in the past. The older ones in Germany may remember that. The death of the forests was one of the first news in what was then West Germany. In fact, in 1984, the expression “death of forests” was voted as the word of the year. It was mainly the exhaust gases from transport and industry that had affected the trees. This was a blow to the Germans, who have always had and continue to have a special, romantic relationship with their forests. Today, around 30% of the land area of ​​united Germany is covered by forests, but the trees are in no better shape than they were 40 years ago – quite the opposite. The report on the state of forests by the Minister of Agriculture Cem Ezdemir states that back in 1984, when everyone was talking about sick forests, 54% of the oak trees were healthy, but today it is only 19%.

To make the forest resistant to climate change

“The forest is in a worse state today than when everyone was talking about the death of forests,” Zven Gelbert, a forest expert at the German Association for the Protection of Nature and Biodiversity (NABU), confirms to Deutsche Welle. “And then society reacted with great energy. Because then filters were installed in the chimneys of the factories on a large scale, the sulfur was removed from the air and this helped the forest a lot.” Today there are different factors affecting trees. And other headlines, including in the field of environmental policy, explaining the “silent” death of the forest. Like climate change in the catastrophic way we are experiencing it today with rivers overflowing or drying up.

“We have climate change, which is now clearly affecting forests,” says Zven Gelbert. “In addition to droughts, storms and water shortages, there are new diseases, most of them caused by known pathogens that are suddenly causing much more damage to forests than we’ve seen before.” The current coalition government has committed in the government agreement to address this trend. Climate crisis, the high temperatures of recent years have caused permanent damage. “Only one in five trees is still healthy, the forest is turning into a chronic patient, so a long-term treatment is also needed,” said Ezdemir.

Economic interests or nature protection

So the key word is climate change adaptation for trees too. “We need to make forests, ecosystems, including cities, storm-resilient. This means that we need to understand the forest ecosystem as such, not just as a forest area. We need to weave the web of life in the forests a little tighter. Let’s bring more species, for example.” However, the pending draft law on forests is already facing criticism. Forest owners see it as a “vote of no confidence” and protest that clearing without permission is to be made a criminal offence. “Instead of a forest law it is more of a nature protection law that has been extended to the forest landscape” complains the Association of Family Farming and Forestry and calls for less strictness and more freedom in management. “The forest is seen by many as a source of timber, which it is and should remain so, but it can only do so if the health of the forests improves and does not continually deteriorate,” says Zven Gelbert.

Almost half of Germany’s forests are privately owned, with an impressive 760,000 forest owners. Timber is a sought-after commodity, prices have risen sharply on the global market in recent years, and exports of raw timber more than tripled between 2015 and 2020, particularly to China and the US. So the pressure on forests is the same everywhere in the world, according to Gelbert: “We have the same problems as other parts of the world. The Amazon is suffering greatly from the climate crisis and there are fears that this moist cell of the earth is drying up. But the forests in Scandinavia are also under great pressure. The forests there must be replanted with many conifers.” Now when and with what content the new German Forest Act will come into force is still written in the stars.

Editor: Irini Anastasopoulou