In his welcome speech, Martin Neumeyer, managing director of the BaySF, was visibly relieved about this year’s forest protection situation. The wet weather has led to a noticeable easing of the situation: Trees are much more vital, and the populations of harmful insects have been minimized. The BaySF expects the volume of damaged wood in their forests to be much smaller than in the previous two years, both of which set negative records (2023: 1.79 million m³, i.e. 33% of the total logging volume; 2022: 1.26 million m³ or 26% of the total harvest volume). This year, the State Forests are far from reaching similar volumes.
“We will go back to harvesting fresh log wood in line with the market situation,” Neumeyer emphasized, calling this approach “breathing felling volumes”.
Basically, the BaySF want to preserve what they call the “best forest” for all forest functions. Even in the damaged wood hotspots, they want to avoid clearings – “unlike other federal states”.
Another strategy for the coming years involves the massive expansion of wind turbines from the current number of 101 to 500 turbines over the medium term. A further 250 wind turbines are to be installed by 2030.
Board member Rudolf Plochmann described the establishment of the “forest of the future” as a task of the century for the BaySF. Nevertheless, he already sees his company as a leader in this area compared to other federal states. “We are the largest and most successful forestry company in Germany, and we will further strengthen this leading position over the next ten years,” Plochmann emphasized.