STUMBLING OVER REALITY

Dear mr. W.H. Hofstede,

This morning, whilst running at the border of the Asserbosch, I bumped into a fallen trunk. The victim is called Norway spruce and rooted in one of those plots next to the former estate ‘Eerste Steen’. You probably know it as ‘Dennenoord’, heath was growing all over the place by then. The spruce went down during one of the windy autumn days this week, but it was not the only reason why it went down. The lps Typographus is conquering the Asserbosch!

THE FOREST LIKE A LIVING ENTITY

Nowadays we like to see the forest as a whole, a living entity. The entanglement of flora and fauna, a natural environment creating and nourishing biodiversity.

Depending on environmental conditions, human and animal interventions, the quality of lives can be sustained, extended or shortened. Your forestry is gone, the quantity of planted trees reached the best-before date, are sold for economical profits, pulled down by storms or damaged by disease. Trees are also removed for soil improvements and recreational reasons; ponds, children’s farm, drainage systems, graveyards etc. I have to say that I have to jump more often over fallen trunks. The youngest spruces affected by lps Typographus (spruce beetle) are often rooted right next to the meandering paths and now ‘blessed’ with orange paint, on their way to be removed by the forestry of Het Drentse Landschap. Open places in the forest will provide us with new perspectives of a living entity.