The abbey forests of Volksabdij O.L.V. ter Duinen are owned by the church and belong to the Diocese of Breda. The woodlands are first-generation pine forests that were created on former heathlands. We have been applying tree-oriented management in these forests for some time. Here, we focus on the quality and vitality of individual trees and intervene locally. We focus on mixing species and age and we want to ensure that wood production, recreation and biodiversity have a joint place within the forest system.

1. We used the already existing thinning paths re-marked to avoid unnecessary soil compaction.
2. The current network of Old, Decaying and Dead trees (OAD) we further expanded by designating habitat trees.
3. A forest tracking took place (on ± 13 ha) with a specific focus on selecting vital and quality tree species from the 2nd tree layer.
4. All existing quality trees On ± 13 ha, we again released.
5. Some of the quality trees are as necessary pruned and/or guided pruning has taken place.
6. In particular, we have drought- and heat-resistant alien tree species planted:
   • Abies bornmuelleriana
   • Pinus nigra Maritima
   • Cedrus libani atlantica
   • Carpinus betulus
   • Corylus colurna
   • Fagus orientalis
   • Pseudotsuga menziessii
   • Quercus cerris
   • Quercus petraea
   • Quercus pubescens
   • Sorbus torminalis
   • Tilia tomentosa
   • Tilia cordata
   • Castanea sativa
   • Alnus cordata

7. We paid extra attention to the light availability at planting sites. To promote (also) the incidence of lateral light, we increased light availability via buckling and sawing.

The forest area is reasonably accessible to heavy traffic and all forest plots are well served by thinning paths. These thinning paths are located every 20 metres, centre-to-centre and parallel to each other.

Development of old trees and forest parts is a challenge in abbey forests. Old trees thicker than 30 cm occur sparsely as lying or standing deadwood, but this proportion may increase. No site has been designated as a permanent forest reserve in these forests.

We expanded the AOD network by designating habitat trees.

You can see groups of young plantings in several places in the abbey woods. Since American oak and Scots pine are already common and not without risks under climate change, we have planted more with more drought- and heat-resistant deciduous species. The added advantage of deciduous species is that they have no evaporation in winter, allowing water to be stored in the soil, and deciduous species are generally less prone to natural disturbances.