Naturschutzstrategien im Wirtschaftswald

High environmental compatibility of the raw material wood while growing, when utilized and deposed of- together with being a medium-range CO₂-sink when used for long-lived wood products - requires imperative sustained utilization of the forest on an area as large as possible. Wholly unmanaged woodlands and comparable reserves thusly should be selected in the best way possible and be restricted to just a few percent of the entire area. This is sufficient and can be justified when nature-oriented silviculture is practiced on the remaining commercial forest area. Parallel investigations on a natural woodland reserve and on commercial forest land have shown that through nature-oriented woodland management favorable conditions for species protection may be provided which are similar to those on reserves. High-priority goals for nature-oriented woodland management are near natural conditions, structural diversity, preservation of rarity, conservation and maintenance of small-scale structures. For the realization of nature-oriented woodland management, basically all silvicultural methods may be considered: single-tree selection, long rotations, and extended regenerätion periods are in many cases suitable procedures.