A brief history of the Institute of Forest Ecology

ed. by Gerhard Glatzel
Forest ecology in Austria dates back to the first half of the eighteen's century. Industrialisation in its eastward spread from England and France had reached Austria and its demand for raw material and fuel had led to a rapid exploitation and deterioration of Austrian forests. Fossil fuels were not used to any significant extent before about 1850 in Austria. In order to extract wood from forests which had not been utilised due to their inaccessibility in remote and steep Alpine valleys, complex chute and water transport systems were built and whole valleys were clear-cut to make these operations profitable. Avalanches, floods and mud slides followed. Widespread concern about the depletion of the at this time indispensable raw material wood and the destruction of water mills along the rivers made forest protection and restoration to a priority issue in land use policy. Forest schools were established, forestry journals founded and forest sciences became recognised as an independent discipline.
Under the spiritual influence of Rousseau and Goethe and under the shock of floods, avalanches, soil erosion and pest calamities, forest science had become convinced, that forestry can only succeed when it is in accordance with the laws of nature. Forest science was defined by J. Ch. Hundeshagen (1821), a brilliant pioneer of forestry in Germany, "the scientifically organised basis for managing the forests in a way which suites the need of the human population in any area and at any time. The term management is use in a comprehensive meaning, encompassing all activities necessary to reach this goal. The needs of the human population are diverse, which means that forestry has not only to consider wood production but also protection against avalanches and storms as well as conveyance of human health." His fellow countryman W. L. Pfeil (1783 - 1859) defined the "Eisernes Gesetz des Standörtlichen" (the iron law of site dependency) "forestry has been set back by the fact that no attention has been paid to the local conditions, and that forest management has been frequently based on general rules, which did not take in account local variations in climate and soil conditions." It is very interesting to note that J. Ch. Hundeshagen (1830, Die Bodenkunde in land und forstwirthschaftlicher Beziehung) was well aware of the indicator value of the herbaceous vegetation "under similar climatic conditions plants are indicative of soil conditions, ... the following (listing) is based on wild plants, the so called weeds, which are more useful for the characterisation of a site than cultivated plants."
In Austria S. Hausegger was the most noteworthy pioneer of forest ecology. In 1853 he wrote in the "Österreichische Vierteljahresschrift für Forstwesen":"It is also certain that a soil on which plants grow is depleted by the amount of mineral nutrients in the plant mass. If the plants are left alone, they will eventually die and decompose, returning all nutrients to the soil in a form most suitable to vegetation. The soil not only looses nothing, but in fact gains from this process and becomes more productive. If, however, plants or parts of plants are harvested, the mineral nutrients in these parts are lost to the soil. The more frequent this happens, the more depleted the soil will become to the depth to which roots penetrate." He was well aware (1861) that Heraklith's panta rhei applies to forest ecosystems: "We know, that there is no absolute steady state in nature and there will never be one, and we can therefore reason, that soil processes too, will not deviate from this law of nature and continue in time. ... the question then follows, whether soil fertility will eventually culminate and remain stable thereafter or decline again."
"Forstliche Standortslehre" as our science was called at that time and up to fairly recent focused on the interrelationship between forest growth, climate and soil, as well as in the biotic and abiotic processes involved. Long before Haekel coined the term "Ecology" in 1868, our forebears did research in forest ecology and applied the results to improve forest management.
At university level, Forstliche Standortslehre was first taught in Austria in 1874 by J. Breitenlohner at the k. & k. Forest Academy which evolved into.the Faculty of Forestry of the Hochschule für Bodenkultur (now UNI BOKU) in 1875. Breitenlohner initiated the first comprehensive collection of forest soil profiles and contributed to forest site science and forest meteorology. He was succeeded by H. von Lorenz-Liburnau who was the editor and major contributor to a well-known textbook on forestry (Lehrbuch für die Forstwirtschaft). From 1911 to 1938 W. Leiningen-Westerburg held the chair of forest soils and site at BOKU. He was trained in chemistry, geology, botany and zoology in Munich, where he became a student of Ramann, the most prominent and influential soil scientist of this time. Leiningen-Westerburg contributed to major text books of his time, especially in the field of forest soil science. His successor was F. Hartmann, who had strong ties with practical forestry because he had been forest manager in Styria for many years. He was an ardent fighter for ecologically sound forest management and a critical warner of detrimental consequences of spruce mono-cultures. Scientifically, he contributed to forest humus classification as indicator of site condition and nutrient cycling. His book "Forest Ecology" (Forstökologie, 1952) was a signpost in the direction of comprehensive forest ecology, long before the modern ecology movement gained momentum in European forestry. Hartmann was succeeded by A. Krapfenbauer, who is best known as an ardent fighter against photo-oxidant air pollution and global warming. He retired in 1994 , but is still very active as a professor emeritus.