FORESTS IN GERMANY,    FORESTS IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Germany is dominated by the temperate zone. Geographically Germany is divided into northern German lowlands, low mountain rage, foothills of the Alps with the Alps. These conditions cause a natural diverse forest structure in Germany. The originally forest vegetation is the deciduous forest  and mixed forest with coniferous forests in mountain regions. Within the changes by the humans the area of unspoiled nature changed strongly. Always the forest was used as a resource (for example building materials and fuel) and therefore typical cultural and working forests developed.

An overview 10 km north east from Berlin (Stephanie Gotza)

This very day Germany is a wood rich land within Europe. In total the amount of forest area is 11.1 Mill. hectares. That means approximately 31 % of the total area of Germany is forest area.

Amount of Forest Area in Germany in  % (Holzabsatzfonds, 2006)

This 31 % of forest area are divided to 2/3 of coniferous trees and 1/3 of hardwood.

Typical picture of a coniferous forest and hardwood  (Stephanie Gotza)

The forests in Germany have been managed according to the principle of sustainability for more than 200 years. The sustainable forest management causes little impact of the structure of the forest - even causes positive effects of the natural structure. The principle of sustainability is anchored in the Federal Law on Forests and the Law on Forests. Hans Carl von Carlowitz was the founder of the principle of sustainability. In his book "Sylvicultura oeconomica“ (1713) he presented the assumption that food harvest should be in direct balance of growing. That means that you can harvest as much as can grow back. This assumption is still valid.

A typical Winter Scene in Waren an der Müritz, Germany (Stephanie Gotza)