The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) together with the Integrate Secretariat planned and realized their booth on integrated forest management at the International Green Week (IGW), which took place 20-29 January 2023 in Berlin. The booth was part of the subject area on biodiversity, one of four subject areas presenting the Ministry’s political priorities, current topics and research innovations in a citizen-oriented and interactive manner.
Raising awareness and understanding for the challenges forest owners and managers face in their everyday work when providing forest ecosystem services was at the heart of this years forest booth in Hall 23a. In particular the challenge of balancing wood production and biodiversity conservation in managed forest stands.
When at the BMEL forest booth, visitors could examine photographs of two large oak trees, presenting on the one hand an exemplary tree of high economic value allowing for high quality wood products, the other being a habitat tree with great importance for biodiversity. Starting from the decision which of the trees to use and which to protect, BMEL representatives present at the booth encouraged visitors to act as forest managers by utilising the Integrate+ training simulation software on tablets that allowed them to experience the challenges of managing forests for multiple services. . The illustrated trees combined with the use of the virtual tree selection training software allowed the visitors to engage in discussions on how to deal with trade-offs in forests managed for biodiversity protection, wood production and other ecosystem services, thus putting themselves in a position to- at least virtually- be a forester for one day.
The illustrated trees with core messages on the role of integrated forest management for the conservation of biodiversity, protection of our climate and provisioning of the renewable resource wood will now be displayed at one of Germany’s largest public information centres on forests and wood: the “WÄLDERHAUS” in Hamburg, a project of the German Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald.
The IGW is a forum on agri-food policy issues dealing with the topics of nutrition, agriculture and horticulture. The trade fair, which was founded in 1926, traditionally takes place every January in Berlin. More info: www.gruenewoche.de/en/