Squirrel Forest Campaign 2008

After the Forest Seeding Association was founded on 1st August 2008 our first aim was to launch as many events as possible this autumn. And we have worked incredibly hard – writing to forestry and education authorities over a wide area, having countless talks with those in charge, networking with partners who can cooperate and with potential sponsors etc.

We knew the time would be rather short since we had made a point of recommending that preparations for Squirrel Forest Campaign projects should begin at the latest after the summer holidays. A lot of forestry departments had for example already planned extensive forest teaching projects for this autumn and were unable to fit in an additional event. Others couldn’t provide a site for seeding at such short notice. The biggest problem, however, has come from Mother Nature herself because this year large areas of Germany have very little or no "mast". That means that most of the oak and beech trees have hardly any seeds = acorns/beechnuts which can be collected and sown. We saw this for ourselves while out walking in the woods around Bad Homburg. It’s an area of mostly beech woods, but there are also a number of oak trees. We found a few acorns under one oak tree. That was all!

All the more reason to be pleased that despite all these problems a whole series of projects was getting underway. Our special thanks go to Petra Westphal and Katrin Fiedler at the Landesbetriebsleitung Hessen-Forst who had started a national pilot project with us and had contacted all the forestry departments in the federal state of Hesse informing them about our campaign. Petra and Karin also came up with the idea that on account of the shortage of tree seeds/acorns and beechnuts projects can incorporate planting so-called “wildlings”. These are small, young wild plants from last year’s acorns or beechnuts, and in several cases such projects took place.

The events:

9th October 2008
Sabine Scholl and 22 children from Hanau were carrying out a seeding project in the Wildpark “Alte Fasanerie” in Hanau Klein-Auheim as part of the Hanau school holiday games programme. In the Wildpark there were only a few acorns, but all the participants did their very best(see report)!

26th October 2008
Forester Lothar Freund, Forestry Hess. Lichtenau, collected and replanted wildlings with a class of schoolchildren. This was because of a shortage of tree seeds, i.e. acorns, beechnuts etc. (see report)
27th October 2008
186 schoolchildren and their teachers from the Freiherr-Vom-Stein-Schule and the Elsa-Brändström-Schule in Frankfurt/Main were in Niedernhausen-Oberjosbach where, despite the general shortage of tree seeds, the foresters Hubertus Behler-Sander and Peter Lepke had found a site with sufficient acorns for the children to collect and bury on two new sites (see report).
28th October 2008
Susanne Simpson and regional forester Oeltzen set off to the Stifter-Wald together with our cooperation partner Kinderwald Kiel and five primary school classes from Altenholz (Altenholz-Stift) to carry out a Squirrel Forest Campaign project. While they were there they also made a forest sofa! (see report).
12th November 2008
Teacher, Ms Thomas, and district forester, Uwe Röglin, took class FlexA (primary school in der Stried) to the woods (Stadtwald) in Beerfelden and carried out a Squirrel Forest Campaign project using officially certified tree seeds (see report).
14th November 2008
Schoolteacher Dagmar Kropp,'her' forester, Michael Durst, and class 7a (Konrad-Adenauer-Schule in Bruchsal) also planted about 200 wildlings (see report) on account of the shortage of tree seeds (acorns/beechnuts).
11th December 2008
Forest officer, Michael Herzog, and class 4 of the school in Baumgarten carried out a Squirrel Forest Campaign project in Stadtwald Bebra, which had been organized perfectly by the forestry department. In a rather more official and very precise description we are given a first-hand account of how a successful project can be carried out. You can read the report here.