Ein Sonderwaldreservat für das Auerhuhn – das Beispiel Amden (Kanton St. Gallen) | A special forest reserve for the capercaillie – the model of Amden (Canton St Gallen)
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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Ein Sonderwaldreservat für das Auerhuhn – das Beispiel Amden (Kanton St. Gallen) | A special forest reserve for the capercaillie – the model of Amden (Canton St Gallen)
Contributor:
Ehrbar, Rolf;
Bollmann, Kurt;
Mollet, Pierre
imprint:
Swiss Forestry Society, 2011
Published in:Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Forstwesen
Description:
<jats:p>Due to a national species action plan, in Switzerland the capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) stands in the center of the forestry measures taken to promote the preservation of biodiversity in mountain forests. Special forest reserves are suitable instruments for the conservation of capercaillie because the consecutive reduction of standing stock is the most important measure to improve the species' habitat quality in Swiss forests. In this article, we describe the ecological conditions, fundamentals and the instruments used to delineate the special forest reserve of Amden (Canton St Gallen, Swiss Pre-Alps) in 2006. Further, we report the planning of the measures and the first experiences with the actions done. The special forest reserve encompasses a national priority area for capercaillie conservation and has a surface of 1772 ha. Forest, particularly high-montane fir-beech forest and high-montane fir-spruce forest, interspersed with many mires and fens, covers 55 percent. For the planning we used an area-wide map of forest stands and one showing habitat suitability. We derived the measures that have to be taken in the near future by comparing the actual and the target state of the forest stands on eleven habitat reference areas. The range of the measures includes thinning for regeneration, the creation of flight and escape aisles, the partial clearing of the proximity of roosting trees, the regulation of young growth in favour of conifers, the planting of silver firs, forest edge improvements, increasing the number of lying logs and pulling down trunks. Until the end of 2009 52 harvests had been done with a volume of 14000 m3, 8 ha of young growth were tended and 3700 young silver firs planted. The procedure has worked well during the first four project years. But only success control regarding the development of habitat quality and the species' population response will show how effective the management concept was. The newly developed principle of habitat reference areas that has been applied for the first time will provide valuable support for such a task ten years after the first measures have been taken.</jats:p>