Meadows and pastures are usually cultivated habitats; they have to be mown by humans or grazed by cattle. If these activities are stopped, sooner or later woody plants will grow and the areas will develop into forest.
"Moths" are not necessarily thought of as butterflies. They appear at night unexpectedly, quickly and more or less chaotically flying around. Thus, they fulfill the image generally expected from them of the unpleasantly disturbing and disgusting insect...
Last Saturday, in response to the call of the administration of Monschau, the StädteRegion Aachen and the LIFE project "Patches & Corridors", around 40 volunteers got together to fight the himalayan balsam under the motto "Monschau rupft!" ("Monschau pulls up").
On Saturday 11th July the "Scythe Course" organised by the LIFE project took place in Monschau-Höfen. The speaker Jan-Roeland Vos imparted his extensive knowledge about meadow mowing with muscle power. In any case, the participants were satisfied with their work in the afternoon!
On May 18 we picked seeds from the lower branches of the old wych elm in Rohren. Two small but full bags of seeds were selected in the evening for well developed seed fruits...
We had actually imagined the beginning of the forest restructuring differently. It was planned to remove about 4 hectares of spruce forest in winter 2019/20 on the slopes of the Rur valley. The extreme bark beetle infestation throughout Germany put a damper on our plans. At the moment we found neither a forestry company for felling nor a sawmill for processing. The processing of damaged wood has priority.
