Coppice loss and persistence in Germany

Abstract

Coppicing is an ancient form of forest and woodland management. Coppice harbours important biodiversity and has a high cultural value, but has been transformed into high forest, neglected and abandoned over vast areas of Central Europe during the past century. Hotspots of remaining, active coppice systems are often under the radar of national and international forest and conservation authorities, because they are managed as socio-ecological systems by close-knit village communities. A better spatial overview of active and neglected coppice, and a quantification of trends in coppice management are important to allocate restoration and conservation priorities and identify potential areas for future coppice restoration. I quantified trends in coppice area across Germany, a country with a historically large proportion of coppice, over the past century. I studied temporal and spatial patterns in management and transformation in a remaining hotspot of coppice without standards (‘simple coppice’) harnessing the Landsat archive and very high resolution, publicly available satellite images. I supplemented the remote sensing analysis by a review of published and unpublished, grey literature. Across Germany, the area of active coppice with standards declined by 98.7% between 1927 and 2020, from ca. 400,000 ha to ca. 5,000 ha. The area of simple coppice declined from an estimated 680,000 ha to ca. 6,400 ha in the same period, i.e. by 99.1%. The area of overage (>35 years uncut) and abandoned coppice is difficult to define and quantify, but it likely exceeds 100,000 ha across Germany. Active coppice, dominated by oak (Quercus spp.) and birch (Betula spp.), is now found only in three regions. However, only in the federal state of Hesse, intact coppice landscapes have survived, comprising an area of ca. 2,000 ha. Here, traditional coppice management with relatively short rotation cycles and large coupes is maintained, with a stable area cut annually since 1986 and no coppice transformation to high forest since the 1970s. There was statistical evidence that the heating oil price influences the area that was cut annually, suggesting some potential for coppice restoration in the coming years, given rising energy prices. As a conclusion, intact coppice systems have virtually disappeared in Germany, and with them their unique biodiversity and cultural heritage. There is an urgent need to safeguard the remaining socio-ecological systems, to develop incentives to maintain current active coppice and to develop integrative approaches to restore abandoned coppice, as a small-scale alternative to commercial forestry and close-to-nature silviculture.

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