Modern management systems for forest management with the focus on forest fire
As part of the Forest Expert Program of the German Forest Society, a training session on "Modern management systems for forest management with the focus on forest fire took place in March 2016. Fifteen forest fire experts from the Guangdong Province Fire Supervision Centers participated in this training.
Guangdong, with its 178,000 square kilometers, is not only the most populated and richest province in China, with 9.3 million hectares of forest it is also one of the most forested provinces. A big problem are the man-made fires when burning fields and reclaiming farmland.
The program was conducted in cooperation with the Forest Inventory and Remote Sensing Department of the Forest Faculty of the University of Göttingen. The Chinese experts visited seminars and excursions in Lower Saxony and
Brandenburg / Berlin. Not only lecturers from university and university mediated forest-related topics. Ina Abel from the Lower Saxony Ministry of Food and Agriculture gave an insight into the legal basis of forest fire in Germany and Europe. In addition, Victor Garcia from the Ministry of the Environment in Galicia held a two-day seminar to discuss the forest fire fighting and control environment in Spain. In Berlin the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the German Forestry Council and the German Forestry Association informed on current forest policy topics.
During the excursions in the forests of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Berlin, the Chinese forestry experts were able to inform themselves clearly about the various aspects of the forest fire problem. In the forest fire center Wünsdorf the forest fire monitoring system »Fire Watch« used in Lower Saxony and Brandenburg was presented and subsequently a forest fire monitoring tower equipped with state-of-the-art camera technology was visited. At the professional fire department in Göttingen and the volunteer fire department Ehrhorn / Wintermoor, the structure of the fire brigades in Germany and the forest fire fighting technique used were demonstrated.
In the forest of the monastery forest Miele the Chinese experts got an impression of how one of the largest forest fires in Germany still affects the management of the forests 40 years later. When visiting the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, scientists presented the latest projects and models related to fire ecology and forest ecosystems. The Berlin City Forests organised a whole day around the topic of forest education. Since forest fires in Germany occur mainly in pine forests, the program was rounded off by a forest excursion in the alder stands in the Spreewald and the beech- and broadleaved stands around Göttingen.
We would like to thank all speakers, supporters and heads of excursion at this pont.
German Article: Chinesische Waldbrandexperten erkunden den deutschen Wald proWald Mai 2016