Plastic forests – the new way forward for Welsh woodland management?Обяснение на новите лесовъдски техники в Бранденбург larger imagePlastic forests could provide the solution to the future for Welsh woodlands as the country faces up to rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.
But that doesn’t mean Welsh hillsides will be covered with man-made trees as predicted climate change patterns begin to impact.Plastic forestry is a new concept revealed to a team of Aberystwyth based researchers working on the FUTUREforest project whilst on a study visit to Brandenburg.
Forest plasticity is defined as its flexibility, its ability to alter its structure under changing conditions whilst still maintaining its function.
Leading members of the project - an INTERREG IVC partnership funded by the EU and Welsh Assembly Government – are investigating best practice methods across Europe.
And the Forestry Commission Wales team which is responsible for FUTUREforest in Wales will be using these best management techniques to help guide the nation’s policy makers and stakeholders as they face up to climate change.
German researchers are convinced that their new ‘plastic’ mixed woodlands can play a key part in groundwater restoration, carbon sequestration and improving habitat quality.
The two-day study tour was part of FUTUREforest’s remit to share experiences and propose new methods of environmental management to prepare the forests of Europe for climate change.
German thinking on forest management was explained to specialists from partner regions – Wales (water management); Auvergne, France (biodiversity); Brandenburg, Germany (knowledge transfer); Bulgaria (soil protection); Catalonia (natural risks); Latvia (timber production); Slovakia (carbon sequestration).
Millions of pounds worth of research has been conducted at high-tech facilities across Brandenburg to discover just how changing weather patterns are impacting on the forests.
Hans Peter Ende, of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Muncheburg, explained that the ultimate objective was to provide solutions which will create a plastic forest – one which will change and adapt to conditions.
At the Britz Ecological Research Station near Potsdam they have been studying the water consumption of trees and their influence on ground water since 1974 using sophisticated lysimeter equipment.
And their findings so far support the view that mixed woodlands, containing a variety of different species, need to replace the vast monoculture forests which are at risk from climate change.
“Simply, by putting all your eggs into one basket single species forests could be lost completely through climate change,” said FUTUREforest project manager Dr Helen Cariss.
“By hedging their bets – mixing different types of conifer and deciduous trees – they are convinced that they can create this so-called plastic forest which can adapt to climate change more readily.”
Certainly research elsewhere in the Brandenburg region seems to back that up. Drought conditions have put pine stands near the station under severe stress – and opened up an opportunity for the Nun moth (Lymantria monacha) to decimate at least half the forest.
The knock on effects of that has been to allow more light into the stands affecting the nutrient balance and reducing ground vegetation as the range of forest species has reduced.
Soil moisture levels have changed and the whole forest floor has become drier – and more difficult for re-planting to be successful.
Now the forestry sector in Brandenburg is working hard to find solutions – replacing single species woodland in trial areas to see if the concept actually works.
“Their plan is to create climate plasticity by planting with a high diversity of tree species – Beech, Hornbeam, Oak, Linden, Ash, Maple and Wild Cherry ,” said Dr Cariss.
“In this way the forest will always have some species which will be capable of thriving whatever the change in the prevailing weather conditions.
“And it will be fascinating to see how this ground breaking research develops, and what lessons we shall be able to learn in Wales from them,” she added.
And German foresters have found that not only will the new-look forests – most of their region is made up of either beech or pine stands – be better able to cope with climate change.
Local people, questioned during a stakeholder exercise, living in the region are enthusiastic about the new woodlands being more user friendly as well.
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