An Urgent Message From Slovenia

Last October 2008, I wrote a post about the Pro Silva Ireland trip to the forests of Slovenia.  Pro Silva Europe was launched in Slovenia back in 1989 and this year, in September, instead of just a three day forest trip and a brief committee meeting, a much more comprehensive event was planned to mark the 20th anniversary of Pro Silva. Approximately 130 people representing 27 countries turned up to the event, including the cream of Europe’s close-to-nature foresters.

Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to this historical event, but Ireland was well represented by three people from the  PSI committee: Donal O’Hare, Cathy Fitzgerald and Liam Byrne.

The main part of the event that I really regretted not being there for was to see these two friends receiving well deserved recognition for their part in starting Pro Silva:

Pro Silva Europe founding member Hermann Wobst from Lower Saxony, Germany (left) ,receiving his award from European President Prof. Jean-Philippe Schutz from Switzerland at the Slovenian 20th Year Conference

These men have worked in forestry all their lives. In the mid-eighties they and some colleagues took a trip across the border into Slovenia to see for themselves these wonderful, commercial, biologically diverse forests that they had heard about, – and to meet the professor who taught close-to-nature forestry to his students. Out of that memorable visit was born Pro Silva.  To create change in European forestry.  Quite a challenge.

Pro Silva founding member Bela Varga from Hungary, receiving his award from Prof. Jean-Philippe Schutz.

The main emphasis for the organization then was to find ways to work with natural systems in forest management, as they had seen in Slovenia. (Hermann Wobst’s father had been a pioneer of close-to-nature forestry in Lower Saxony)  Their message was heard and Pro Silva has attracted foresters from 27 European countries to date.

But now there is climate change.  A potential crisis of enormous scale for us all. The main message to come out of the conference and workshops in Slovenia was that in terms of forest management, you just can’t get better than what Pro Silva members are doing. It ticks all the boxes more than any other approach.  They got it right. But that now their message urgently needs to go out beyond foresters and into a much wider audience, including politicians, policy makers, the media, etc.

I think until these recent floods in Ireland, the worst on record, most of us were content to imagine that climate change was just an interesting theory.  There are still many people here who say this kind of thing happens all the time. But the predictions are that Ireland will get wetter and warmer.

The Cabin Woods on my farm under water during the floods.

I went canoeing out over the lake during the high waters.  Luckily the Cabin just managed to escape damage.  Our house is up on a hill, as are the cattle sheds and we were very lucky not to be effected by the flooding.

From out in the canoe, the Cabin came this close to being flooded.

But the most heart warming site I saw was in the following photo.  I was out in the canoe, paddling around in my woodlands and noticing as much as I could take in of the astonishing scene with SO MUCH WATER.  And here I saw signs of nature trying to help the situation and showing us the way:

Thousands of alder seeds float on the flood waters, trying to reach higher ground and give support to the new levels of the waters edge.

No related posts.

Tags: Following nature's lead, pioneer trees, Slovenian forestry