Heath

Heath or heath is the name for a type of landscape. In the strict sense of the word, such surfaces are called Heide, which are characterized by nutrient-poor and acidic soils. These nations are also called Atlantic nations. Typical plants of the Atlantic heathland are heather plants, juniper and pine trees. The flowering heather as lead plant transformed once a year, from summer to autumn, the wide, treeless moorland Atlantic type in a purple carpet.

In another sense of the word even those nutrient-poor areas moorland are called, which are characterized by large floodplain forests, wet meadows and dry grasslands, where numerous herb plant growing.

With few exceptions, most heathland Earth anthropogenically shaped cultural landscapes that only have continuity when specific types of use or maintenance activities ( grazing, Entkusseln etc.) inhibit the natural succession.

• 4.1 biodiversity
• 4.2 recreation
• 4.3 preservationists

Geographical distribution

Germany

The total area of ​​all heathland is in Brandenburg 12,407 acres, more than in any other state in the Federal Republic of Germany. Known heathlands are the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony, Dresdner Heide in Dresden, the Colbitz - Letzlinger Heath in Saxony- Anhalt, the Senne in North Rhine-Westphalia, the Ohligser Heath in Solingen (North Rhine -Westphalia) or the Schorfheide in Brandenburg. All of these heathlands belong to the type of the Atlantic nations.

Heathen -Atlantic type, there are mainly in southern Germany. To them belong the Lechtalheiden at Augsburg.

Heath section of the megalithic tombs of the road Hümmling in Great Berßen

Reicherskreuz heath in Brandenburg

Waldfriedhof Lauheide in Münster ( heath in the background)

The Westruper Heath in Haltern am See

Low- high heather fields in the Sauerland

Heide spots near the Lettstädter height in the Middle Black Forest

Rest of Europe

In Europe, there are a variety of heathland. To distinguish three main types of Atlantic Gentiles:

Outside Germany, there are the Alps and nearby areas with nations of the non -Atlantic type.

Heide on the Kintyre peninsula (Scotland )

Cannock Chase, Staffordshire (England)

Coastal heath at Cap de la Chèvre (Brittany, France)

Coastal heath in Øer ( Djursland, Denmark)

Deer on a heath area in the Hoge Veluwe near Arnhem

Kalmthoutse Heide ( Belgium)

Wrzosowiska Cedyńskie at Cedynia ( Zehden ), West Pomeranian Voivodeship (Poland )

Jussi Heide ( Estonia)

Perchtolsdorfer Heide in Lower Austria

Heathland at 1800 m altitude in the Swiss Alps above Bad Ragaz

Description

The origin meant the Old High German word " heath " (also " Heyde " ) " raw land ". This designation was transferred to the Allmendeweiden that were shared by all farmers in the community; it woods and pastures were not divorced from each other, the forest was mitbeweidet and thinned by more and more of. " Heather" was then more a legal concept as a landscape form, elsewhere they spoke in the same vein of "Mark ", " Common / community / vulgarity ", " commons ". Accordingly, "pagans " in Northern Germany dwarf shrub corridors, in southern Germany Kalktriften with poor grass, in the east sparse pine forests. In modern times, then sat (probably due to the heather and the fame of the Lüneburg Heath ) of the North German name by. Regionally there are different names for Heath, for example, " Palve " in the Baltic region.

Development of heathland

Originally Gentiles only to natural forest-free locations on coasts ( dunes), found in bogs and mountains. The typical heathland occurred through human management instead of the original forests (usually acidophilous deciduous forests ). This is reflected, among other things, the example of the Lüneburg Heath. Although the pasture and crop production on soils in the northern German lowlands coined until the 10th century already the landscape. The orchards with vigorous growth oak and beech forest communities but always managed to colonize the abandoned man-made surfaces. The intensive use of forest resources in the following centuries drained the regenerative capacity of the stocks. By clearing, grazing and fire the forests have been thinned and promoted the spread light- loving plant communities. In extreme overuse it came to light soils ( Pleistocene Sander and dunes) to the formation of flight sands. Be particularly devastating to the additional agricultural use proved by Plagge blow.

When practiced until the 19th century Plagge blow the topsoil has been removed with the vegetation and the root zone. What remained was the pure mineral soil. The sods were used as fuel or used as bedding in stables and mixed as fertilizer on the fields with the feces of animals. Other nutrients were removed by grazing, especially with Heidschnucken. Grazing also prevented the nursery larger shrubs or trees and did not promote dogged woody species (willow weeds) as the characteristic of heathland juniper.

Nutrients exported from the so- soils. Rain washed out the last remaining nutrients that were in permeable soil parent material ( sands) quickly moved into deeper layers. On these degraded soils specialists such as heath family ( Ericaceae ) and juniper now settled (Juniperus communis), which opens up by strong organic acids, the last nutrients from the soil. There was an acidification of the soil, can exist as decomposers in the increasingly less bacteria. As a result, litter and organic components could be less and less decomposed. Below the Auswaschungshorizontes these soils, a zone where the organic complexing agents ( polyphenols, carboxylic acids, fulvic acids ) with iron, manganese and aluminum formed precipitate and solidify. On moister sites under Erika nations formed in this layer for the plant roots often impenetrable hardpan, on drier soils under Callunaheiden Orterde.

Heath care today

The barren heaths of North West Germany, with its juniper and heath vegetation are the result of a centuries -lasting use by the Heidebauerntum. Since then, artificial fertilizers or excess manure from areas with intensive livestock farming economically can be introduced on heaths, this type of use was uneconomical. A large proportion of the land was converted into arable land. In Germany livestock enterprises were set on poor surfaces on a large scale decades ago.

Was holding and the decrease of the total area of heathland through military benefits (eg Lieberoser Heath, senna, Osterheide to Schneverdingen, Mehlinger heath near Kaiserslautern in the Pfalz), which interfere with the nursery of shrubs and trees massively and new even to the formation heathland contribute. Otherwise, the Verwaldung of heathland can only through conscious landscape maintenance ( here: heath care ) prevent.

Heaths are often protected as landscape or nature conservation areas from being used more profitably. This raises the question whether this protection is useful in each case. Furthermore, the question arises why the idea of nature protection not in certain cases, such as in protected virgin forests, should be interpreted to mean that the human interventions in the natural development of heathland completely fails.

Biodiversity

The adapted to the habitat heath sheep and cattle breeds as well as other animal and plant species of the heath are threatened with extinction if this habitat is disappearing. This process would reduce biodiversity. In the interest of preserving endangered species, the disadvantage is that, for example Heid and Moorschnucken that are optimally adapted to the habitat heath, compared to other sheep breeds only a little milk, meat and wool production, is of secondary importance. The main task of these animals is the eating of grass, herbs and leaves of the trees to obtain a nutrient-poor habitat, the existence of which not only do they benefit. Sheep farming on heathland is therefore subsidized by public funds.

Recreation

Nature parks such as the Lüneburg Heath play an important role for the recreation (here especially for the residents of the metropolitan areas of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen). Tourism is an important economic factor for the region. Especially the acting anachronistic character of the landscape from the " Hermann- Lons - time " self -powered and there kind of agriculture affect many tourists attractive. The rarity of large-scale heathland makes it the " worth protecting relic ".

Many visitors feel the need to be found near its conurbation a moorland landscape, and no other, as they have developed for this type of landscape an emotional relationship. The box office success of a home movie like " Green is the Heath " is an indication of this condition. The " patriotism " that has led in the 1950s, still a record of attendance in German cinemas, should not be as pronounced as it was today. Speak declining numbers of visitors to the Lüneburg Heath for this assumption.

Whether the development and the change promoted by nature through the instrument of nature conservation or whether of townspeople perceived as beautiful state of a cultural landscape should be preserved, is an open question for many conservationists. With the principle of nature conservation both versions are compatible.

Preservationist

The " Framework for the expansion of the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park " describes the historical preservation generic task of regional planners. " Historically developed town centers, heath churches and farmhouses, sheep pens and boulder walls bear witness to the past and shape the image of many communities ." Accordingly, ie sheep pens must not only get because they would be required for the keeping of moorland sheep, but also for the sake of preservation.