Photo by Jakob Derks (EFI)
During the Coronavirus lockdown period in Bonn (Germany), when visiting the local urban forests and green spaces, we quickly realised that the number of newcomers to urban green spaces and in urban forests significantly increased because people found themselves restricted from meeting others and moving freely.
Your aloft trees, my walls
Their shiny leaves, my roof
The birds sing and the squirrel calls
“Here it is, corona-proof”
“Under COVID-19, visitor numbers have experienced an unprecedented boom. The Kottenforst was already a popular forest area before, over the year we counted an average of 290 passers-by per day. But in March and April, the number increased by a factor of 2.4,” says researcher Jakob Derks of the European Forest Institute (EFI), impressed by the results at an open-air press conference held in the Kottenforst on 14 May 2020.
It is an oak – a pedunculated oak, one of a few hundred oak species in Europe. My colleagues – foresters – would be able to say a lot of other interesting things about this species’ biology.
Image Source: Julo