Stamping point 8 / Stamping beech

The Stempelsbuche crossroads (671 m above sea level) is located on the Heinrich Heine Trail, which leads from Ilsenburg to the Brocken.

The stam­ping sta­ti­on is also loca­ted in the refu­ge here. It pro­ba­b­ly got its name from the once magni­fi­cent beech tree, which now only exists as a stump. 

From Stem­pelsbu­che you can con­ti­nue the tourto Bro­cken­haus HWN 9, Gel­ber Brink HWN 22, Fer­di­nands­stein HWN 16 or the Schar­fen­stein ran­ger sta­ti­on HWN 2.

Bet­ween Bre­mer Klip­pe and Stem­pelsbu­che HWN 8, you hike through dead spruce forests. This may frigh­ten hikers, but the natio­nal park has the fol­lo­wing stra­tegy for deal­ing with this problem: 

Quote Harz National Park:

Tar­ge­ted inter­ven­ti­ons to crea­te the wil­der­ness of tomor­row

Forests are on the move. If peo­p­le do not inter­ve­ne, they fol­low their own forest laws. But becau­se humans have ove­r­used the forest in past cen­tu­ries, we must help the cul­ti­va­ted forest to beco­me a natu­ral forest again. In the natio­nal park, we sim­ply lea­ve the forest to its own devices in are­as that are alre­a­dy clo­se to natu­re and trust in its powers (natu­ral dya­mic zone). In other are­as, we give it a hel­ping hand, keep the bark beet­le at bay or pro­mo­te the cycle of life of growth and decay (natu­re deve­lo­p­ment zone). 

Natural dynamic zone

Forest in the natu­ral dyna­mic zone is left to its own devices. The­re is no more human inter­ven­ti­on here. The only excep­ti­ons are bark beet­le con­trol in a 500-met­re-wide strip on the outer bor­ders of the natio­nal park and traf­fic safe­ty along important paths. 

Nature development zone

In the natu­re deve­lo­p­ment zones, the natio­nal park is still car­ry­ing out mea­su­res to increase the clo­sen­ess to natu­re in the­se are­as. This impro­ves struc­tu­ral diver­si­ty and eco­lo­gi­cal sta­bi­li­ty and pro­mo­tes deci­duous trees. No eco­no­mic goals are being pur­sued. Howe­ver, the wood pro­du­ced in the forest can be used. 

Bark beetle control

Bark beet­le con­trol is car­ri­ed out accor­ding to the fol­lo­wing principles:

• Con­trol on the outer bor­der to pro­tect end­an­ge­red neigh­bor­ing popu­la­ti­ons (in a strip approx. 500 m wide)
• Pro­tec­tion of lar­ge spruce com­ple­xes in the natu­re deve­lo­p­ment zone
• No mea­su­res in the natu­ral dyna­mic zone (with the excep­ti­on of bark beet­les in the bor­der area)

Our aim is for at least 75% of the natio­nal park area to be left to its own devices by 2022, i.e. to be clas­si­fied as a natu­ral dyna­mic zone.