Northern Woods - A Tribute to the Ancient Forests of the North - Free Documentary Nature

It seems as if time stands still in the forest. Life takes place in other dimensions here and follows different years. Human lifetime is too short to discover the secrets of forests. Forests had already existed for a long time before people populated earth. During these times they could spread extensively. Around 300 million years ago, the antecedents of our conifers developed from lycopods, ferns and horsetails. Much later, only about 100 million years ago, deciduous trees arose and developed to be the dominant parts of forests. But soon there was another danger ahead for the young forest. The Ice Age. The last glaciation continued until about 10,000 BC. The average yearly temperature was minus three degrees celsius in the alpine foothills. There wasn't much left of the forest under the ice cover. The plant growth only increased again slowly when the temperatures rose. Many plant species died out because of the Ice Age and their remigration from the south was made difficult by the high barrier of the Alps. And therefore, a much species poorer flora than the one before the Ice Age developed in the north of the Alps. So-called pioneer species like birch trees and pines prevailed first, followed by hazels and spruces. Step by step, the steadily growing flora created a base for roe deers reconquered the area north of the Alps. Their greatest enemy was the wolf, the most widespread predator in those times, not only in the forests of Europe, but throughout the world. After many conifers had succeeded to become indigenous, mixed oak tree forests spread about 9,000 years ago due to the rising temperatures. People have lived in the forests north of the Alps for around 700,000 years, but they only became sedentary during the Neolithic Age, which was about 7,000 years ago. Much later, during the Middle Ages, the population was growing steadily. Now people intervened in the circle of forests more and more. It is a little miracle that these riparian forests, as the ones here in the meadows of the river Isar in Upper Bavaria, have succeeded to survive to this day. The forests, stricken with floods, with their nutrient-rich oxbow arms, have been a paradise for many species of animals and This is called sexual reproduction. The blossoms are their sexual organs. They have their egg cells and their ovaries, which are fertilized by the male pollen grains. Due to pollen flight, which means by wind or by insects, the male pollen reaches the female oaks, beeches and field maples belong to these Manetius trees. Daetius trees are the ones that consist of only male and only female trees. Poplars, willows or sycamores, for example, are Daetius. Wind or insects take on the work of pollinating Mono and Daetius trees. A clever move of nature. There is nothing that could prevent forests spreading. Almost nothing. As were widely spread in the forests of Central Europe previously. But, like other raptors too, they were systematically traced and nearly wiped out in the second half of the 19th century. Today, golden eagles in Germany only breed in the Alpine region. Trees have always had an immense meaning for humans. Abraham learned that he would be the founding father of a great people under an oak. Vikings believed that an ash tree named Eugrasil even embodied the entire cosmos. Foxes, in fables, are regarded as especially clever animals from time immemorial. And they were able to spread widely in the European forests. Their greatest enemies were, and still are, humans. Humans settled down. They had to clear forests first to make a place for their farms. The peak of clearance was reached in the 12th or 13th century. So many names of villages in Germany founded in those times ended in reit, reut or reut. All originated from the German word Roden, which means clearing woods. Previously, forests were regarded as a dangerous wilderness and denoted an area outside the civilized world. The English word forest, the French forêt, or the German forst, derived from the old Latin forest, which means out or outside. Trees north of Reut can be explained by the extremely distinctive solutions between summer and winter in this area. Sufficient rainfall and moderate temperatures will make trees grow stronger, especially in spring and winter. Trees can grow to a height of nearly 60 meters and become more than 1,000 years old in northern Europe. Sedentary people used the cut trees for heating and construction. Thereby, they learned to appreciate the advantages of teamwork. So, for example, initially primitive supports of construction and handicraft were developed on the fine stone. The social development during the Middle Ages led to more and more specialists. The craftsmen were proud of their professions and used them as their surnames. For example, Zimmermann, which means carpenter. The forests north of the Alps needed around 10,000 years to recover from the last ice age. But already in the Middle Ages, people stopped this development at many places by radical clear-cutting. Vast areas of Denmark, Ireland, and Iceland were simply cleared for war and merchant fleets around the North Sea. Only far away from the coasts, the forests could be preserved. If a forest is dominated by deciduous larch trees, it is called sparse tiger. The dark tiger is combined of pines, spruces, or firs, species of trees which also shape the appearance of the hills and mountains of Germany. Beach trees grow in France as well as in Sweden. During the Middle Ages, beach tree forests covered wide areas of Europe. People liked the solid timber of beach trees for construction works. Not only trees, but also animals had to adapt themselves to the sometimes odd climatic conditions. This is difficult in areas where only a sparse growth of trees and plants is possible due to the altitude or the location in the north. Musk oxes are survivors of the last ice age, though they had nearly died out by the beginning of the 20th century. In between, they have been able to become indigenous again in Europe. About 300 of them live in the Norwegian Dover mountains today. There are no more bears in Great Britain or Germany, but there are about 3,000 of them in Sweden. The last bear which was born in Germany was shotty up in Bavaria about 180 years ago. But bears had been hunted systematically much earlier, and during the Middle Ages they were forced back into forests and highlands which were difficult to access. In those times, people steadily strived for higher ideals. Whoever could now afford it built his house of stone. Whereby the towers of castles, and especially the columns of cathedrals, had a natural ideal. The tree. The high nobility lived high up in their castles. The lower classes lived down in the valleys where forests were forced back further and further towards the slopes because of pasture farming. The nobility and the church liked to declare that their forests were banned areas where ordinary people had no place in the Middle Ages. People who violated this hunting ban had to face draconian sentences. In the 14th century, the pestilence raged in Europe and carried off the complete population of villages. The pestilence could not do any harm to forests. Wood and sorrow grow every day, as an old German saying. Actually, the forests were able to recover during the late Middle Ages. Still, around 1500, Gustav Vasa, the king of Sweden, announced, we must be diligent and grow to obtain ground for cultivation. The useless forests must be cut down. Besides bears and wolves, also gophers and elks have died out since the Middle Ages. But the fox was clever enough to keep out of people's way. Forests play an important role in many Germanic sagas. For example, in the saga of Parsifal, or in Evine, written by Hartmann von Auer. Forests also appear in each second fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. They are described as deep, dark and sinister most of the time. They are places of hostile forces, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. But the German forest is also a home of good spirits, like the grey little man in the Golden Goose. It can even be a place of ideal, like in the fairy tale Snow White. That's all about the cliché of the German enchanted forest. In reality, the everyday life of people in the good old days often was a struggle for survival. And these fights quite often happened in the forests. In these days, the forest did not only serve as an energy and timber supplier, but also as pastures. Livestock was systematically driven into the forests for fattening, especially in the autumn. It was common parlance to say, the best bacon grows on oaks. A good year of fattening was able to secure the survival of entire villages and regions. Forests were an important natural source for charcoal burners. They produced charcoal and a controlled combustion of logs in their charcoal kilns. Charcoal was the energy source in the Middle Ages. It was five times lighter than wood and still had a higher energy density. Charcoal was easy to transport and it was the only combustible material which could be used to reach a temperature of more than 1,000 degrees. In the 18th century, it produced one ton of iron, 10 tons of charcoal. The results were devastating, and the motor of progress rotated quicker and quicker. People talk about it all the time today. Sustainability was not an invention of the 21st century. You should not drop your old clothes until you have new ones. It was said to be a citation of Hans Carl von Carligate. The inspector of mines working in service of the King of Saxony was responsible for the firewood supplies of the energy-hungry war knights. Carligate is regarded as the spiritual father of sustainable economic activities. He was a long way ahead of his time. In the 20th century, deciduous trees became obsolete. Spruces promised fast growth and quick profit. If you want to destroy a forest, go and plant spruces, nothing but spruces. Actually, there was one problem, the spruce bark beetle. It destroyed and damaged massive amounts of spruces. But when this finding had already reached the whole country, there were already different problems. Trees and plants transform carbon into oxygen. Animals and humans use oxygen and transform it to carbon dioxide. This quantity is sufficient for 10 to 20 people to breathe for an hour, or for a car to run a distance of 15 kilometers. Cars are insured against damages by law. Trees are not. With an amount of about 180 billion tons, mankind has combusted half of all oil deposits within 50 years only. For this purpose, around 360 billion tons of oxygen are consumed. This was not different at the beginning of the 1980s, when suddenly a certain fear spread in Germany. Forest decline. However, the damage and harmful substances from chimneys and exhaust pipes was not easily detected by laymen. Even though people already knew that they were responsible for acid rain, scientists sounded the alarm. In 1983, the first survey about the condition of forests was conducted in Germany. A short time after, the launch of the catalytic converter followed. Additionally, exhaust gases from chimneys had to be filtered from now on. Since that time, Germany has gained the image of a pioneer in the matter of environmental protection. However, in Germany, the yearly CO2 emissions are still very high, with around 9 tons per person, which is higher than in the industrialized nations of Denmark, Sweden, Great Britain, Italy and China. The challenges of today have a global nature. In 2013, the emission of carbon dioxide reached a peak value of 36 billion tons. In the same year, an area of the size of Greece was deforested. Paradox. We need forests more urgently than ever before, but globally, less and less of them are left. Industrialization. Nobility preserved large groups of roe deers and red deers for their feudal hunts. The population of the animals increased, and they even ate young shoots. To rescue the forests, ordinary people were forbidden to cut trees, and even forbidden to go hunting. In the winter of 1843, 180,000 offences against forest laws were put on record, only in the Palatinate region. Three quarters of all trials dealt with hefts of wood. The people revolted. And as a result, the German Revolution took place in 1848. At the beginning of industrialization, timber was still the most important energy source, but it was soon replaced by coal and by mineral oil later on. Today, there are more environmentally sound alternatives. They are urgently needed, as the Earth's atmosphere contains some 40% more carbon dioxide than before the beginning of industrialization in the 19th century. It seems as if time stands still in the forest. Life takes place in other dimensions here, and follows different rules. Human lifetime is too short to discover the secrets of forests. But maybe it is sufficient to understand that we need them.