Beech forests are the end point of spontaneous forest evolution, forming climax vegetation in places that are not too dry, too hot or too wet. If it was left to nature, the beech would cover most of our continent. Ancient near-natural beech forests are now extremely rare in Europe and are generally found at sites that are difficult to farm or develop. By international comparison, the beech forest belongs to Europe’s critically endangered habitats, even though the beech as a species is not endangered at all. This is why the few remaining primeval beech forests and centuries-old European beech forest areas unaltered, or little altered, by humans are inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. This transnational property includes 94 component parts in 18 countries.
Since the end of the last Ice Age, European Beech spread from a few isolated refuge areas in the Alps, Carpathians, Dinarides, Mediterranean and Pyrenees over a short period of a few thousand years in a process that is still ongoing. The successful expansion of beech forests across a whole continent is related to the tree’s adaptability and tolerance of different climatic, geographical and physical conditions. These forests contain an invaluable population of old trees and a genetic reservoir of beech and many other species, which are associated with and dependent on these old-growth forest habitats.
Over the course of the year, and throughout their life cycle, beech forests undergo highly differentiated stages and processes. Germination, the densely packed juvenile trees during their early years, the decades of competition for space, water and light, maturation into an imposing tree, followed by death and decay. Without human interference, a largely undisturbed flow of natural processes unfolds. Together, and over decades and centuries, these typical wilderness phenomena shape the forest.
Please note: this information is a general description of UNESCO’s World Heritage, which is located elsewhere in the Sonian Forest. In 2017, five parts of the Sonian Forest (located in Ticton, Joseph Zwaenepoel and Grippensdelle) received recognition as a UNESCO Word Heritage Site of “Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe”. It is the only UNESCO Natural World Heritage site in Belgium.