Forest only plays a sub­or­di­nate role in terms of area in the Low­er Oder Val­ley Nation­al Park. In addi­tion to the remains of hard­wood and soft­wood allu­vial for­est in the pold­er area, there are some remark­able hill­side forests on the slopes of the Oder Val­ley, i.e. on the old lat­er­al moraines of the Oder glacial val­ley. Since they are dif­fi­cult to use for forestry due to their steep hill­side loca­tion and are dif­fi­cult to reach, they are in a near-nat­ur­al state and were large­ly incor­po­rat­ed into pro­tec­tion zone I (total reserve) when the nation­al park was found­ed (1995).

This means that the forestry has been stopped here and the trees are grow­ing, but can also fall and stay where they want. This is where real wilder­ness devel­ops and wilder­ness can be dan­ger­ous. We strong­ly advise against hik­ing in these forests in the event of a storm.

Hunt­ing is also stopped in these wilder­ness areas. Excess hoofed game pop­u­la­tions (wild boar, roe deer, deer) are only skimmed off in the hill­side forests on one or two dri­ven hunts per year in order to avoid game dam­age on the sur­round­ing fields, but also to enable brows­ing dam­age in the for­est and thus nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. We don’t call that hunt, but wildlife reg­u­la­tion. This is nec­es­sary until the nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring preda­tors such as wolf (Can­is lupus), Lynx (Lynx lynx) and bear (Ursus arc­tos) have become at home again and can take on their role in the ecosys­tem. Only then can the hunt be stopped. The wolf is already there, dec­i­mat­ing above all the roe deer, main­ly the old and sick, but also the beaver or small car­ni­vores such as the fox, which, if it pre­vails indef­i­nite­ly, endan­gers the already thin mead­ow breed­ing pop­u­la­tion in the Oder flood­plain. So we hope to achieve a rel­a­tive eco­log­i­cal bal­ance in the for­est in this way, if pos­si­ble with­out human intervention.

But the nat­ur­al decid­u­ous for­est is already worth see­ing. Hik­ers can, for exam­ple, hike from Lunow to Criewen on many good hik­ing trails through the unspoilt hill­side forests, but bet­ter not when there is wind or storm.

As old maps show, allu­vial forests were exten­sive in the Mid­dle Ages and cov­ered over two thirds of the area of the Oder val­ley. Due to the agri­cul­tur­al use, the allu­vial for­est was pushed back fur­ther and fur­ther. The emer­gence of new trees was pre­vent­ed by mow­ing and tread dam­age, by brows­ing by wild ani­mals and graz­ing ani­mals, but also by the lack of flood­ing dynam­ics of the no longer freely flow­ing riv­er in the pold­er area. Such flood­ing would be nec­es­sary in order to open up the dense veg­e­ta­tion cov­er and to give the allu­vial or blown tree seeds good oppor­tu­ni­ties for ger­mi­na­tion on the ero­sion areas.
Of the Hard­wood allu­vial for­est is a for­est dom­i­nat­ed by oaks and elms on a moist loca­tion in the flood­plain, which can cope well with the reg­u­lar win­ter floods. In the low­er Oder val­ley, the hard­wood allu­vial for­est con­sists main­ly of the white elm (Ulmus lae­vis) and the Eng­lish oak (Quer­cus robur) togeth­er. A larg­er remain­ing occur­rence of the hard­wood allu­vial for­est can be found around the Welsesee.
Floods in sum­mer, dur­ing the grow­ing sea­son, are rel­a­tive­ly dif­fi­cult to cope with in hard­wood allu­vial forests. The effects of the extreme sum­mer floods of 1997 can be seen well on the Welsesee. Numer­ous elms and oaks died there in 1997, the dead trunks of which still soar into the sky. But this is a nat­ur­al process, which in turn opens up new liv­ing spaces for oth­er liv­ing beings.
Also the Soft­wood allu­vial for­est can only be found in a few places in the low­er Oder val­ley, for exam­ple as the white wil­low-black poplar allu­vial for­est at Crieort, in the Vorde­ich area near Criewen, Lunow or on the old Oder. Soft­wood allu­vial for­est is made up of var­i­ous types of wil­low and poplar, of which above all

• White wil­low (Sal­ix alba)
• Pur­ple wil­low (Sal­ix purpurea)
• Quak­ing aspen (Pop­u­lus tremula)
• White poplar (Pop­u­lus alba)
• Black poplar (Pop­u­lus nigra)

are to be men­tioned. The native black poplar is strong­ly threat­ened and is expe­ri­enc­ing a new, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion in its own fund­ing project.
It is planned to increase the pro­por­tion of the allu­vial for­est again as part of nature con­ser­va­tion man­age­ment. Accord­ing to the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan, the ini­tial­i­sa­tion of the allu­vial for­est is planned on up to 1,000 hectares. This is to be achieved, among oth­er things, by ini­tial plant­i­ngs that open the oth­er­wise dense herba­ceous lay­er and, after a few years of pro­tec­tive care, pro­duce a self-repro­duc­ing ripar­i­an for­est. Land users are also required to effec­tive­ly iso­late trees and water­ways in order to facil­i­tate the nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion of the allu­vial forest.

On the slopes of the Oder val­ley there are wet forests in the val­leys and spring gorges, that of the ash (Frax­i­nus exel­sior) are dom­i­nat­ed and can be found in a very good dis­tri­b­u­tion. This damp ash for­est deserves spe­cial atten­tion and is rel­a­tive­ly rare in Germany.

There are beau­ti­ful hill­side forests in the Lunow­er Hölzchen, in the Gellmers­dor­fer Forst, in the south­ern part of the Peter­berge and in the north between Gartz and Mescherin.

In the hill­side forests, the beech trees nat­u­ral­ly dom­i­nate, as they can still be found in the Gellmers­dor­fer For­est today. A grove beech for­est can be found on super­fi­cial­ly sand­ed soils, in which a num­ber of acid indi­ca­tors, e.g. the Schlän­gel-Schmiele (Deschamp­sia flex­u­osa), the thorny worm fern (Dry­opteris carthu­siana) or the pill-sedge (Carex pilulif­era) occur reg­u­lar­ly. On lime-rich soils, for exam­ple boul­der clay, a sedge-beech for­est is very rarely found in the area, through the moun­tain sedge (Carex mon­tana) and a num­ber of orchids (e.g. Cepha­lan­thera dama­so­ni­um) is marked.

Main­ly, how­ev­er, woodruff and bar­ley beech forests can be found in the low­er Oder val­ley. For them, the gold­en dead net­tle is in the soil lay­er (Lami­um gale­ob­dolon) who have favour­it­ed Spiked Devil’s Claw (Phy­teu­ma spi­ca­tum), the woodruff (Gal­i­um odor­a­tum), the sin­gle-flow­ered pearl grass (Mel­i­ca uni­flo­ra), the Christo­pher herb (Actaea spi­ca­ta), the liv­er­wort (Hepat­i­ca nobilis) or, more rarely, the Turk’s cap lily (Lil­i­um marta­gon) dis­tinc­tive species.

Many of these loca­tions are now pop­u­lat­ed by horn­beams, ses­sile oaks, Eng­lish oaks or win­ter lin­den trees and also make a nat­ur­al impres­sion. How­ev­er, these horn­beam for­est com­mu­ni­ties are like­ly to be an anthro­pogenic “arti­fact” on the Oder, i.e. the result of ongo­ing low or medi­um-sized for­est oper­a­tions. Accord­ing to the lat­est find­ings, today’s oak and horn­beam forests in the hill coun­try and the slopes of the Oder val­ley are anthro­pogenic. The loca­tion fac­tors cor­re­spond to those of the beech forests. But where the vig­or­ous and shade-tol­er­ant beech can thrive, it dis­places the oth­er, infe­ri­or tree species. In some typ­i­cal oak-horn­beam forests, for exam­ple in Lunow­er Hölzchen, young beech forests begin to grow and ini­ti­ate nat­ur­al devel­op­ment. Up until now, experts were con­vinced that the beech could not thrive in most of these loca­tions and that these areas were reserved for oaks and hornbeams.

The elm hill­side forests on the steep slopes of the glacial areas to the Oder Val­ley are a spe­cial rar­i­ty among the for­est com­mu­ni­ties in the Nation­al Park. All three types of elm deter­mine the tree lay­er: white elm (Ulmus lae­vis), Field elm (Ulmus minor), Moun­tain elm (Ulmus glabra). A rich flo­ra com­ple­ments the pic­ture. Here are the dwarf lark­spurs (Cory­dalis pumi­la) and the scat­tered for­get-me-not (Myoso­tis spar­si­flo­ra) dis­tinc­tive species.