Professor Baeser, what are your conclusions from over 10 years of forest ecosystem research in Göttingen? The investigation of the forest damage has shown that it is necessary to pursue long-term and interdisciplinary approaches, and that was the birth of forest ecosystem

research. The research in the Zolling has been carried out for years, and it has created instruments to provide aerial descriptions of ecosystem conditions and of ecosystem changes.

On the one hand, the instruments developed in the Zolling have now been applied to large areas in Europe and form the basis for ecosystem monitoring in the EU. But on the other hand, the dynamics of change exhibited by forests have made it clear that the factors acting on forests are not constant.

They change rapidly, and the forests respond with corresponding rapidity to these changes. The consequence of this is that the concepts forming the previous basis for forest research, practical forestry, environmental protection, and landscape planning are no longer valid

and must be changed. Additionally, the long-term investigations have also shown that eco-political decisions

which have been made, such as the large furnace ordinance, can be tested using this instrument of forest ecosystem research as a quasi-evidence provision procedure. And finally, one should mention that a theoretical approach has been developed which allows estimation and prediction of future changes in forest ecosystems.

What conclusions can you make from the collected research data for future environmental management? The investigations have shown that in particular the habitat function of the forest ecosystem,

that is, the biotic diversity and also the regulatory function of forests in nature's element budget, are to be more strongly taken into consideration than they have been to date. The biotic diversity of species must be increased at the ecosystem level and at the species level in many cases, and the establishment of mixed forest must be promoted.

This is thus an important requirement. Use-induced uncoupling of the element cycles are to be avoided to the greatest possible extent. In other words, the reduction of nutrient losses in the scope of harvesting procedures

or other forest or interventions, or also through large-scale clear-cutting, are to be avoided. Furthermore, degraded sites, those which have been damaged in the course of human utilization over the course of centuries, but in particular also by the bulk deposition of the last several decades, are to be regraded by means of selected interventions,

such as lime application, but also through interventions in the water cycle, to put them into a condition in which biotic diversity, that is the presence of many tree species, can be achieved, thus re-establishing stable ecosystems.

And there remains an old requirement, random depositions, such as those of which we have in our forests through the emission of pollutants, must be even further reduced in the future. A beginning has been made, particularly with respect to sulfur dioxide, but nitrogen is

still a great problem. It makes our forests eutrophic and results in a destabilization of the entire system. Which focal point should be set in forest ecosystem research in the future? An important group of questions which must be answered concerns the role which biotic

diversity plays in the other forest functions, that is in the regulation of the element budget, in the production of wood, but also in the cultural and social functions of the forest. Another aspect which must be studied is the determination of the extent to which forests

can adapt to the changing environmental conditions, environmental conditions of a chemical but also of a physical nature, that are to be expected in the scope of global change. Then there's an important question as to the extent to which the results obtained

for small areas can be extrapolated to larger ecological units. Can the information that has been determined for point areas be extrapolated to regions or landscape types? Additional information and also additional models are required in this context to extrapolate these data.

Another important question, which is becoming increasingly more important, concerns the role forests play in the biogeochemical cycles of elements on a global level.

These topics should be studied in the near future, and when one has this information, one will also be in a position to develop strategies for a multifunctional use of forests.