Since the recent forest fires in the Harz National Park, there has been a controversial debate about how to deal with the dying spruce trees and the remaining deadwood. The national park has a clear position.
Wernigerode (dpa/sa) – The Harz National Park administration wants to leave dead wood in the forests. Clearing large areas of dead wood from the national park would be considered technically, scientifically and practically wrong, said a spokesman for the national park. The question is whether some deadwood needs to be removed for better firefighting. To do this, it must be checked “whether the deadwood can be removed from neuralgic, particularly endangered areas”. The protection of “life and limb” has top priority.
However, areas of dead spruce trees up to 500 meters wide have already been cleared, especially around settlement areas, the spokesman emphasized. In addition, dead spruces were removed on both sides of hiking trails to protect visitors. “This also results in aisles of up to 25 meters wide,” the spokesman explained. This ongoing task has been pushing the national park administration to the limit of its capacity for several years.
In addition, there is another reason why the deadwood must be treated with a sense of proportion. The spokesman made it clear that additional fire protection lanes would make other sensitive areas of the area accessible to visitors. If visitors camp there, the danger of igniting campfires increases, which is already a major problem.
With regard to deadwood in the Harz National Park, opinions in Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony recently differed. Saxony-Anhalt’s Forest Minister Sven Schulze (CDU) called for some of the dead wood to be removed in order to be able to better intervene in the event of a fire. Environmental groups, on the other hand, spoke out against clearing dead wood over a large area and emphasized its protective effect. They argued that deadwood absorbs moisture like a sponge when it rains and gradually releases it again when it is dry. Lower Saxony’s Environment Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) also rejects large-scale clearance.
