German Forest Association

German Forest Association eV (DFV)
legal form	registered association
founding	1899
Seat	Goettingen
purpose	Improvement of the framework conditions for the forest and forestry
Chair	Carsten Wilke
Members	7,000
Website	www.forstverein.de

The German Forest Association eV is a non-profit association .

It was created on August 21, 1899 in Schwerin through the merger of the "Assembly of German Forester Men" with the "Reich Forest Association".

It is the umbrella organization of 11 regional forest associations:

• Baden-Württemberg Forest Association
• Bavarian Forest Association
• Brandenburg Forest Association
• Hessian Forest Association
• Forest Association Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
• Forest Association North Rhine-Westphalia
• Northwest German Forest Association ( Lower Saxony , Bremen , Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein )
• Forest Association Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland
• Forestry Association Saxony-Anhalt
• Saxon Forest Association
• Thuringian Forest Association

The members are predominantly foresters and forest owners. The organizational structure of the German Forest Association in 11 independent state forest associations corresponds to the federal state structure of Germany. The forest association currently has around 7,000 members.

aims

According to its statutes , the association pursues the following goals:

• Care for the local forest within the framework of forest laws as well as nature, landscape and environmental protection
• Improvement of the framework conditions for German forestry through forest policy initiatives
• Promotion of forestry and forest science

In the association, current problems in the forest and wood industry are thematized, discussed, and solutions to problems and ways out are sought. This applies to questions from the fields of silviculture, business administration, wood marketing, wood technology and ergonomics as well as forest and environmental legislation, nature conservation, climate change and forest policy.

history

The German Forest Association was founded on August 22, 1899 in Schwerin from the assembly of German foresters and the Reich Forestry Association . Besides the German Reich and the states, the German Forest Association was the only address for German forest policy from 1899 to 1919. The first president was Bernhard Danckelmann . A year later, the Forestry Council was founded as the political committee of the German Forest Association, in which large private forest owners and representatives of the state forest associations dealt with current issues.

As a result of efforts by academically trained foresters to become independent in the German Forestry Association, in 1903 there were calls for the formation of the Association of German Private Forestry Officials and the Association of Academically Certified Forestry Officials . (At the beginning of the twenties, the German Forest Association separated from civil servant organizations that exclusively represented professional interests. Only the Association of Higher Forest Officials in Bavaria remained in the German Forest Association, as its goals corresponded to the goals of the Forest Association.) In 1919 the Forestry Council separated from the German Forest Association. The Reich Forestry Council was founded with the help of the German Forestry Association (dissolved in 1934, re-established as the German Forestry Council in 1950 ). The interests of forest owners could no longer be adequately represented in the German Forest Association without the Forestry Council, so the Reich Association of German Forest Owner Associations was re-established (dissolution in 1934, re-establishment as a working group of German Forest Owner Associations 1949). The first joint meeting of the state forest associations with the German Forest Association took place in 1921, previously there was only cooperation in the Forestry Council.

On the occasion of the 35th annual conference in September 1952, the German Forest Association was re-established.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall , the Thuringian Forest Association , the Brandenburg Forest Association , the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Forest Association , the Saxon Forest Association and the Saxony-Anhalt Forest Association were established in the German Forest Association in 1990/1991. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary in Schwerin in 1999, for the first time, there was no pure technical conference, but the public was included in the conference.

Chairman and President of the German Forest Association since 1899

1899-1901	Chairman of the Landforstmeister Bernhard Danckelmann , Eberswalde
1901-1903	Chairman Oberforstmeister Carl Eduard Ney, Metz
1903-1910	Chairman of the Hofkammer-President Paul von Stünzner, Berlin
1910-1913	Chairman of the Ministerial Director Karl von Branza, Munich
1913-1916	Chairman Oberforstrat Paul Riebel, Filehe
1917-1918	Chairman of the Hofkammer-President Hans von Bassewitz, Gotha
1918-1933	Chairman of the Ministerial Director Lorenz Wappes , Munich
1933-1938	Club manager General Forestry Master Walter von Keudell , Hohenlübbichow
1938-1944	Head of the General Forestry Master Friedrich Alpers , Berlin
1944-1945	Head of the Association, Ministerial Director Otto Mahler, Berlin
1952-1958	President of the State Forester Karl Hesse, Wiesbaden
1958-1970	President Ministerialdirigent Franz Klose, Bonn
1970-1982	President Oberforstdirektor Karl Kwasnitschka, Donaueschingen
1982-1990	President Oberforstdirektor Franz Freiherr Riederer von Paar, Regensburg
1990-2001	President Ministerialdirigent Wolfgang Dertz, Wiesbaden
2001-2005	President Forest Director Henning Graf von Kanitz, Bad Laasphe
2005-2009	President Forest Director Anton Hammer, Baden-Baden
since 2009	President Ministerialdirigent Carsten Wilke , Taunusstein

Awards of the DFV

For the 100th birthday of Lorenz Wappes (chairman of the DFV from 1918 to 1933) the Lorenz Wappes Prize was donated by the DFV in 1960 . The award honors outstanding activities in the field of public presentation of the forest and forestry. With the foundation of the Bernhard Eduard Fernow plaque together with the American Forest Association ( Society of American Foresters , SAF) in 1964, people are to be honored who have made outstanding contributions to international forest cooperation.

Committees and collaborations

The association forms committees on current issues such as climate change, the timber industry and nature conservation, which draw up statements or policy papers. Following on from the work of the former DFV Committee for International Forestry and Wood Industry Cooperation (AifhZ), the Network for International Sustainable Forest Management (NIWA) was founded in 2010 to provide a platform for internationally active foresters.

The association is a member of the German Forestry Council (DFWR), the Board of Trustees for Forest Work and Forest Technology (KWF) and PEFC Germany . He also works closely with the Tree of the Year - Dr. Silvius Wodarz Foundation.

He is internationally active in the European Forestry Network (EFN) and in the UNECE / FAO -FCN Forest Communicators' Network. In addition, the forest association has been cooperating with the Polish Forestry Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Leśne, PTL) since 1984.

Membership and member magazine

Membership is associated with joining a regional forest association. Any natural person can become a member. After numerous forerunners, the forest association magazine "proWALD" has been published since 2006 as a communication organ about the forest and forestry in Germany.

literature

• Hans-Jürgen Wegener : Responsibility for Generations - 100 Years of the German Forest Association . Published by the German Forest Association Hainholz, Göttingen 1999, 352 pages, ISBN 3-932622-70-7

Web links

• Web presence of the German Forest Association
• Early documents and newspaper articles on the German Forest Association in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .