According to a recent inventory, well over 60% of all trees in our forests are significantly or even severely damaged. Only over 14% are still really healthy, and a whopping 12% are already dead.
All it takes is a quick trip to the forests in northern Luxembourg to notice that spruces are becoming increasingly rare. Similarly, beech trees in southern Luxembourg are suffering from changing weather conditions due to climate change.
In light of this, experts are calling on the government to work consistently towards rejuvenating our forests by planting new and different species of trees and plants. However, there is another challenge that needs to be dealt with first, namely the wildlife.
Something has to be done about the excessive game in the forest, because the appetite of these animals for chestnuts and young trees and hedges is too great, says Roger Schauls of the Mouvement Écologique.
“It’s virtually impossible to let young plants grow naturally because the density of deer has become so great that they actually eat everything away. And with the young plants, of course, we lose the forest of the future. We urgently need to push this density down, otherwise our children will no longer know the forest, which is already quite threatened anyway.”
The private forest owners, who own more than half of the forest area in Luxembourg, have done the maths: in the next few years, up to 750 million euros need to be invested in our forests.
250 million of those will go into planting new trees and plants. And if nothing is done about wild life, about 500 million euros over 10 years to equip the young plants with over 10,000 kilometres of protective fencing.
Therefore, a double appeal is launched: on the one hand to the hunters to get a better grip on wild life, and on the other hand to the government to regulate hunting in a more realistic way.
An example would be to extend the hunting season later into the night, or to give up forest rest, or otherwise to extend hunting until January.
Video report in Luxembourgish:
