Berlin – Derk Ehlert is something like the official top nature fan of the Berlin administration. He is the Senate’s wildlife advisor – and also responsible for the areas of tree protection and special natural events. In this capacity, the 53-year-old issues a clear warning. “We expressly ask all Berliners not to go into the woods at the weekend,” he told the Berliner Zeitung.
The reason is the severe damage caused by the three storms in the recent past. Ehlert says that even after the last storm had actually ended, the winds were still so strong that the forest workers could not start the clean-up work until Tuesday of this week. “The Berlin forests are deployed with around 200 people,” he said. The most important work will probably continue until the middle of next week.
Much sun announced
The entry warning is important because cool temperatures have been announced for the weekend, but plenty of sunshine.
The foresters first clear the fallen trees from the paths so that they can then use them to get the other fallen trees out of the forest. “It will take a few more weeks for all the damage to be repaired,” said Ehlert, who works in the press office of the Senate for the Environment.
Volkmar Otto
Derk Ehlert studied landscape planning.
The experts point out that entering forests is always at your own risk. The advantage at the moment is that the deciduous trees are still green and it is easy to see whether there are broken branches hanging from the crowns. The problem, however, is that such branches or uprooted trees that are leaning against other trees can suddenly fall down, even when there is no wind at all. Another disadvantage: the majority of trees are conifers. “And you can’t see in their green crowns whether branches have broken off there that could fall,” said Ehlert.
Less damage than feared
The damage balance of the storms remained below the first fears. Initial projections showed that 10,000 solid cubic meters of wood were overturned. In 2007, the biggest storm to date, “Kyrill”, almost doubled. Storm “Xavier” was also more in 2017. In the case of “Xavier”, the high level of damage was mainly due to the fact that it swept across the country in October. “The crowns of the deciduous trees were still green and full of leaves and thus offered the storm a lot more surface to attack,” said Ehlert.
Trees that suffered particularly badly from the severe drought in the drought years of 2018, 2019 and 2020 were obviously particularly affected by the damage. In addition, the experts observed that the storm not only knocked over free-standing trees at the edge of the forest, but often also individual trees or groups of trees in the middle of the forest – the cause: downwinds that pressed down the trees from above.