Like many forest owners, the Austrian Armed Forces are affected by the negative effects of climate change. Climate-related natural events are causing increasingly frequent and intensive damage to army forests. The Austrian Armed Forces are therefore taking targeted measures to make forests more climate-friendly and planted 60,000 trees of different species last year.
This year, 60,000 young trees will be added at the Allentsteig military training area alone, the largest training area with a forest stand. They will make the army forests more resistant to climatic stresses and at the same time bind CO2.
“The defense department is the owner of 12,000 hectares of forest. This area corresponds to the size of the city of Graz. The primary goal of the Austrian Armed Forces is to ensure the continued existence of the natural backdrop ‘forest’ for military training operations. The management of forests on military training areas is therefore designed to preserve ‘permanent forest stands’. At the same time, these forests are important carbon dioxide reservoirs because the greenhouse gas CO2, which has an impact on the climate, is stored for a long time in living and dead wood in the course of photosynthesis. With our continuous near-natural silviculture through new planting according to ecological principles, we aim to promote stable deciduous wood-rich forest ecosystems in order to withstand the expected climatic changes. In this way, our army forests are also making an important contribution to combating climate change,” says Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner.
Climate change damages army forests
The consequences of climate change, which are becoming increasingly frequent and intense in the form of destructive fires, storm damage and the mass spread of bark beetles, are also affecting army forests. Bark beetles and subsequent wind events have led to 3,300 hectares of around 6,000 hectares of commercial forest at the Allentsteig military training area, for example, dying off. This makes it necessary to replant according to ecological principles and thus promote stable deciduous wood-rich forest ecosystems.
Climate-adapted tree species, fruit trees, species protection
The conversion of the army forests is being carried out through targeted reforestation with drought-tolerant and deep-rooted tree species, such as sessile oak, English oak, sycamore maple, black walnut, service tree, hornbeam, hazel, small-leaved lime, bird cherry, European larch and white pine. Last year, army forestry staff planted 25,000 trees in Burgenland, 21,000 in Lower Austria (excluding Allentsteig), 11,000 in Styria, 800 in Upper Austria, 300 each in Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg and 200 in Vienna.
Around 70 percent of the Allentsteig military training area has been designated as an EU bird sanctuary. To maintain the ecological function of tree avenues, old varieties of fruit trees are planted alongside forestry tree species. This revitalizes or preserves old avenues of fruit trees on the military training area. To this end, the army is mainly planting cherries, plums, apples, pears and wild pears.
Utilization and CO2 storage
The wood resulting from necessary maintenance work is usually supplied to the timber industry, where it is also used as construction timber. This ensures permanent carbon storage. As wood chips, the wood provides a climate-friendly source of energy in the army’s own power plants, such as in the Horn barracks. The special military use of the landscape on military training areas means that large areas are cultivated as permanent grassland. The benefit for the climate is that permanent grassland soils store around twice as much carbon as arable soils. At the same time, healthy forests offer better fire protection than climate-stressed and weakened tree populations.
Austrian Armed Forces and forest research projects
The Austrian Armed Forces is a research partner in the “Emerge” research project funded by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management in order to better research the fire behavior of Central European forests, derive recommendations for silviculture and create better forecasting tools for the risk of forest fires. The aim is to better understand the processes involved in forest fires in Austria.
Other research projects include the “Bruckneudorf military training area natural forest reserve”, which runs from 2000 to 2040 and focuses on the dynamics of forests that have been decommissioned. The “Klip 18” project, which has been running since 2013, researches guest tree species and their suitability for cultivation under current and future climatic conditions at the Bruckneudorf military training area using experimental plantings from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna.
