Sustainable forest management - Analysis and Consulting

Oliver Henze / flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0 / creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

Sustainable forest management

by André Algermißen

Sustainable forest management protects the most important ecosystem services in the forest and enables adaptation to climate change.

Forests are recreational areas, provide diverse ecosystem services and are considered to be an important economic factor with diverse income opportunities. The condition of our forests is worrying: storms, forest fires, bark beetle infestations and the droughts of recent years have affected them. What can sustainable forest management look like against the background of increased expectations of environmental and climate protection?

July 1, 2021 Ordering Information

The concept of sustainability is closely related to German forestry. The forest and wood cluster provide work for around 1.1 million people; the employees work in around 130.000 companies.

Storms, forest fires, bark beetle infestations and droughts have severely affected forests and require solutions. Sustainable forestry aims to preserve the ecological, economic and social value of our forests. However, setting aside land, as demanded by some environmentalists, is not very effective. It does not do justice to the protection of biodiversity or the potential of the forest as a carbon store. In addition, the demand for wood would be offset by imports.

Sustainable forest management therefore uses the multifunctionality of the forest and introduces measures to optimally adapt the forests to climate change. For the preservation of the ecosystem services and for the intensification of the climate and biodiversity protection, remuneration models are available for the forest owners. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture has made initial proposals.

Read the entire monitor here as a PDF.