Photographs from a forest in transition
First impression
A day trip from Bad Harzburg takes you to the Rabenklippen.
The view stretches as far as the Brocken.
But first he gets stuck on the trunks.
Silvery-brown, shiny deadwood.
Upright skeletons.
A landscape that is frightening at first.
What was once a dense spruce forest,
appears open, dry, injured.
The first impression is bleak.
Almost dystopian.
The forest has not disappeared
But this impression is deceptive.
The forest has not simply disappeared.
It is in a state of upheaval.
New life finds a place between the dead trunks
.
Young spruce trees.
Beech trees.
Birches, aspens, rowan trees.
What looks like the end,
is also a transition.
Why this change is becoming visible
The change has many causes.
Drought.
Storms.
Heat.
Weakened spruce trees.
Bark beetles.
Many of the spruce stands in the Harz Mountains were man-made:
fast-growing,
economically useful,
but not very resistant in many locations.
Climate change has made this weakness visible.
Photographic view
What interests me about this forest is not just its condition.
I am interested in the transition.
The standing trunks.
The open areas.
The hard light.
The lines of dead branches.
The young plants in between.
The forest does not present itself as a closed picture,
but as a layering:
past,
decay,
new beginnings.
Signposts
There are signs between the trunks.
Painted markings.
Signs for hiking trails.
Traces of paint on barky bark.
They indicate paths,
while the forest itself changes its shape.
Some signs look sober.
Others almost like small pictures:
color on wood,
order on a restless surface.
Read as a mosaic,
they become a second track in the project.
It’s not just the forest that is changing.
Our orientation within it is also changing.
Context
Forest change is visible in different ways in the Harz National Park.
In many areas, nature is allowed to be nature.
Deadwood is left lying or standing.
It becomes habitat,
protection,
nutrient,
starting point for new forest development.
In other areas, the change is accompanied,
for example, by planting or measures to protect adjacent commercial forests.
The result is not a simple state,
but a multi-layered transition:
between former commercial forest,
climate change,
natural dynamics
and future wilderness.
Further information: Harz National Park – Forest change to wilderness.
What remains
Forest in transition does not show a lost forest.
The photographs show a state in between.
What is dead,
remains visible.
What is new,
is still small.
In between:
paths,
signs,
bark,
light.
A forest,
which does not stand still,
but changes its shape.
A portrait of the lynx Pamina was also taken during the excursion.
Read more in the journal article.