04.07.23 Working in the forest
Today we had a little hike with a lot of input in the forest under the guidance of Jan Teschner. We hiked through the forest area near Tützen where a lot of forest harvesting is taking place. But why the harvesting? In many forests in Germany, the bark beetle has spread in recent years. Due to the severe droughts caused by climate change, many trees in forests are damaged and must be cut down before the bark beetle can spread further. Jan told us that this is related to the monocultures in forests. The bark beetle mainly attacks coniferous trees such as spruce. Back then, many monocultures were planted because it was much easier. Nowadays we know that mixed forests are much more sustainable, the soil is better there and new plants have much better chances to grow. Jan also taught us a lot about regeneration. So we learned why cutting old trees off is important ( so it doesn’t affect the better once ) and we learned what is been used with the old trees that been cut off. We all experienced how it feels like working in the forest and making it all happen. We thought that this is not all about play and easy games but hard work and most of us don’t understand what the workers have to go through doing hinges like this. It all takes time from one step to another and most times we take it for granted because we don’t see the effects or hard work that’s been put in. Speaking about hard work it’s even better working together that way you get the job done better and faster not only physically but in the nature world as well. We see how the plants and trees all work together to sustain each other and just like them we did to. We all helped each other make it happen even tho there were times we were tired we supported each other. That is a really nice feeling and also show the bound between all of us trough this time. It was a bit scary at first because you had to be really careful when cutting the trees but fun at the same time and once you did one you just wanted to do another because it was so fun. On the other hand we felt a little confused about just cutting the trees down that had been grown for years but in the end I guess all of us understood what is it good for and that we also support the forest with our cutting down. We are very happy hat we got the chance to cut the trees because that way we know what it would feel like for the workers. It was an amazing experience doing it and of course like they said hard work pays off…so we did go to the lake and enjoyed the rest of the day with some cake. There some even went for a swim which was so good and nice, but we would say our highlight of that day was definitely cutting the trees.
Nele & Aisha