In the future, there will be more wetlands in the forests of north Zealand as the nature authority Naturstyrelsen tries to recreate the waterholes and swamps that drainage and ditches have erased from landscape.
Naturstyrelsen today revealed its plan to remove a large number of the ditches that criss-cross the woodlands in north Zealand over the next few years.
“If you look at a map of Gribskov Forest from the 1800s, it's almost completely blue due to slush water and swamplands,” Jens Bjerregaard Christensen, a forester with Naturstyrelsen, said in a press release.
“Over time, they dug lots of ditches so most of the water was drained away. The goal was for the trees to grow as much as possible. But now we want the water back, so the forest can become a good place for amphibians, insects and birds.”
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7 x Fælledparken
Today, swamps, small lakes and waterholes cover a total of about 900 hectares of woodland area, but that number will increase by 350 hectares by 2030 – a wetland growth the equivalent in size of seven times the size of Fælledparken in Copenhagen.
Among the forests that will have more wetlands are Gribskov, Nyrup Hegn, Tisvilde Hegn and Grønholt Vang, while Naturstyrelsen has also made a similar plan for Bornholm.
The new wetlands will be a benefit to the frogs, snakes, dragonflies, salamanders and a number of water fowl such as the grebe and the goldeneye duck.
