When visiting Germany I went through the Black Forest area. I was expecting something like you'd see in British Colombia or Northwestern USA. Instead what I saw was forestry plantations of monocrop non-native trees and clearcut patches of forest covering entire mountainsides. I tried looking up where an example of old growth forest can be seen in the area and apparently they simply do not exist.
Keep in mind how different the population densities are.
In the Middle Ages, all (accessible) German forests were harvested until not much was left. Most still existing forests have been re-planted and managed to produce wood since then.
There are exceptions in the form of nature preserves like Naturpark Pfälzerwald.
By the way, there are some fun docmentaries about the hard work in forestry a couple of decades or even more than a hundred years ago. This is one, the rest should show up in suggestions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeU5u4VGkrI
Oh yeah, I'm not blaming them at all, it's just you can't really compare Europe's wilderness at all to places like the US' or especially Canada's. I think a lot of Europeans aren't even aware that what they consider pristine nature would be considered low quality second-growth forest in other countries.
The clearcut patches are probably a reaction to the bark beetle.
(And the recent bark beetle infestation is largely a reaction to the earlier monocrop planting. DW had a good piece on that recently. Most places are planning to regrow their forests with more diversity in species.)
Comments
When visiting Germany I went through the Black Forest area. I was expecting something like you'd see in British Colombia or Northwestern USA. Instead what I saw was forestry plantations of monocrop non-native trees and clearcut patches of forest covering entire mountainsides. I tried looking up where an example of old growth forest can be seen in the area and apparently they simply do not exist.
Keep in mind how different the population densities are.
In the Middle Ages, all (accessible) German forests were harvested until not much was left. Most still existing forests have been re-planted and managed to produce wood since then.
There are exceptions in the form of nature preserves like Naturpark Pfälzerwald.
By the way, there are some fun docmentaries about the hard work in forestry a couple of decades or even more than a hundred years ago. This is one, the rest should show up in suggestions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeU5u4VGkrI
Oh yeah, I'm not blaming them at all, it's just you can't really compare Europe's wilderness at all to places like the US' or especially Canada's. I think a lot of Europeans aren't even aware that what they consider pristine nature would be considered low quality second-growth forest in other countries.
The clearcut patches are probably a reaction to the bark beetle.
(And the recent bark beetle infestation is largely a reaction to the earlier monocrop planting. DW had a good piece on that recently. Most places are planning to regrow their forests with more diversity in species.)