Sustainable cultivation of coppice-with-standards woodland
Sustainable cultivation of coppice-with-standards woodland
Data from the EO Wald web service reveals a 'coppice-with-standards' (CWS) management system in the oakwoods of Bavaria's Franconia region. This is a traditional form of woodland management rarely practised today, but one that allows firewood and timber to grow in the same area at the same time. CWS woodlands usually consist of two layers of vegetation: an overstory – trees that are left to age – and an understory which is regularly harvested. Coppicing (felling) normally takes place in winter. The resulting sparse forest structures – identifiable here as continuous stripes – may look unusual but play an important role in nature and species conservation. Select trees, often those that have grown nicely, are left standing. These one-off giants are not visible in the dataset, but over the course of a century evolve into mighty overstory of the CWS woodland.
