EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - UNESCO World Heritage

NOMINATION DOSSIER ANNEX 7.3.2
"ANCIENT BEECH FORESTS OF GERMANY"
Prearrangement of the Coordinated Management
The following steps have been carried out in preparation of the Coordinated Management
within the context of the nomination activities:
assessment of the existing protected area plans
elaborating the differences in the management system of the component parts;
harmonisation of the existing protected area plans with UNESCO and IUCN stipulations
regarding Natural World Heritage sites;
development and coordination of a standardised framework in case management is
not is handled uniformly.
A steering group has been instituted to address these issues which is composed of representatives
of the State departments (Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania,
and Thuringia), the Federal Environment Ministry, and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation
(BfN: Bundesamt für Naturschutz). This group has been closely collaborating with
the administrations of the nominated component parts and having experts involved in the
analysis and harmonisation processes.
A shared general principle was adopted for the extension nomination within the scope of the
harmonisation process the maxim of which being: “Let Nature be Nature”.
General principle
Let Nature be Nature
The aim is to preserve and protect a globally unique and outstanding parts of the European
beech forests with significant ongoing evolutionary and ecological processes affecting the
plant and animal societies.
• Within the nominated component parts, nature is allowed to develop according to its own
rules – they are the most valuable old large-area beech forests in Germany.
• The property shields the common beech's habitat, which is limited to the European lowlands
and low mountain ranges.
• The property provides the space required for undisturbed, natural, ecological, and biologic
processes, places of rest and retreat for naturally occurring wild animals and plants
(following criterion ix).
• The property is a valuable place of experience for both education and research, a oneof-a-kind
place allowing recreation seekers to experience nature as well as coining the
regions’ image.
With the extension nomination, Germany makes a major contribution towards the preservation
of a property of outstanding universal value. All protective endeavours undertaken in the
component parts follow an ecosystem approach. They are intended to safeguard the ongoing
evolutionary and natural dynamic processes to preserve the entire biological diversity of
the beech forests.
3