Читать книгу The Westweg. Through Germany's Black Forest онлайн

18 страница из 45

Attitudes did not begin to change until the time of the industrial revolution. Realising that overexploitation of forest resources was putting people’s livelihoods at stake, the authorities passed the first legislation to protect the environment. It was decreed that no more timber should be harvested in any one year than could naturally regrow within the same period. Simultaneously, a massive reforestation campaign was launched.

Trail through the predominantly deciduous woodlands of the southern Black Forest (Stage 12A)

Unfortunately, then as now, ecological considerations came second to economic priorities. The forest was stocked with fast-growing, commercially valuable Norwegian spruce and Douglas fir, which, thanks to their straight growth and sparsely branched trunks, soon returned a profit. The forest recovered remarkably quickly – within 60 years it had pretty much replenished – but the economically biased strategy soon proved to be short-sighted: the forest had basically been turned into a monoculture of shallow-rooted trees. It was a disaster waiting to happen. And happen it did – most poignantly in December 1999, when legendary hurricane Lothar blasted its way across the Black Forest and within just a few hours lay waste to about 40,000ha of trees.