Forest recultivation--A contribution to forest reconstruction in Lusatia

摘要

Opencast lignite mines in Lusatia occupy large areas. At present about 100 ha of land are needed for 10 mill, t of raw lignite each. In Lusatia the area occupied by mining so far amounts to approximately 85,000 ha. Vattenfall Europe Mining AG (VE-M), head office at Cottbus, annually produces approximately 60 mill, t of lignite in four opencast mines. According to this the claim of land is also high, for example 577 ha in the year 2008. By now, 59 % of all areas in Lusatia used by lignite mining have been reclaimed. The largest part of it was and is forest recultivation. More than 30,000 ha of dump area were already afforested. Our present plans include a share of 52 % of forest areas in the post-mining landscape. In addition there will be 11 % of renatura-tion areas - large parts of it will successively developing to have the character of forest.