The best hikes from bus stations in Brussels

A solid wood bridge crosses the Horseshoe Pond, which is thus divided into two parts.

one of the most beautiful trails in the Soignies forest

A 1600m long racecourse ideal for interval training. It has a fine gravel surface.

Here we see a watercourse, which is enough for a beaver. If the beaver builds a dam here, it can become a pond or a lake in two or three years. The animal can change an entire ecosystem, simply because its dam retains water and rain. These natural beaver dams are very efficient in combating floods and droughts, because they regulate the flow of small watercourses. Locally, they can shape the forest through flooding by flooding parts of the forest, causing the tree vegetation to die. When the beavers leave their dam and their beaver pond, a succession from pioneer forest to climax forest can start again after the reservoir has drained.

A beech tree likes shade in its youth. They can establish themselves in the shade of other more light-loving tree species. Conversely, no tree is able to establish itself under a closed canopy of beeches. We therefore call the beech the climax tree species. It closes off the natural forest succession and can maintain it for a very long time, provided that no large-scale and brutal disturbances disrupt its kingdom. This place is very typical of the forest management of the Sonian Forest: all the trees are the same age and of the same species. In this part you see monospecific forest management, they are all beeches.

Forests are central to the fight against the triple global crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. They cover nearly a third of the Earth’s land surface and are home to the vast majority of terrestrial biodiversity. Despite efforts to halt deforestation and restore degraded areas, forest cover continues to shrink. Since the end of the last great ice age, about 10,000 years ago, 57% of the Earth’s habitable land was covered by forests. Over the past 10,000 years, a third of the world’s forests have been lost, an area twice the size of the United States. Half of that loss has occurred in the past century. Forests are essential to combating climate change. They contain 662 billion tons of carbon, more than half of the world’s total carbon stock in soils and vegetation. Societies derive significant benefits from forests and are heavily dependent on them. It is estimated that more than half of global gross domestic product is heavily dependent on what ecosystems provide. The forestry sector contributes more than USD 1.52 trillion to global gross domestic product and employs 33 million people. Yet many people living close to forests do not benefit sufficiently from them. Although 75 percent of rural residents live within 1 km of a forest, they have little right to those forests. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of all forests are state-owned, while 80 percent of people live in extreme poverty in rural areas. The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on forest value chains and trade in early 2020. Most sectors have recovered quickly, but the risk of future pandemics remains. Forest management is well-positioned to play a key role in a green recovery.

Here, thanks to good forest management, we can see how the ecosystem of a natural forest works: you can see that large branches and dead tree trunks are left here because they are part of the ecosystem. They contain a special biodiversity, such as insects that help break down the wood of the branches and trunks, and many birds, such as woodpeckers, that feed on these insects. In the past, dead or diseased trees were removed because it was thought that this was important for a healthy forest. But preserving these trees as part of the ecosystem actually contributes to the health of the forest. A dead tree in a forest is usually a place with high biodiversity, compared to a forest where all the trees are the same age, all healthy and where all the dead wood has been removed.

Here we see a stream. For a beaver, that's enough. If the beaver builds a dam here, in two or three years it might be a pond or a lake. The animal can change an entire ecosystem simply because its dam holds back water and rain. These natural beaver dams are very effective in controlling floods and droughts because they regulate the flow of small streams. Locally, they can shape the forest by flooding parts of the forest, which causes the vegetation to die. When the beavers leave their dam and pond, a succession from pioneer forest to climax forest can resume after this reservoir dries up.