The importance of protecting our forests

Text: Miriam Hoffmeyer

Ever since the Romantic era, it has been a truth universally acknowledged that Germans love green carpets of moss and the sound of the wind whispering in the tree tops. According to surveys, nearly 90 percent of the population still enjoy spending time in the forest. Yet the Forest Condition Survey published by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity in June 2025 reveals just what an alarming state the country’s forests are in. Among other things, investments are to be made in research to protect them. The DAAD has long since recognised the importance of our woodlands: it supports numerous projects and cooperative ventures aimed at fostering research and teaching, knowledge transfer and capacity building with respect to forests and woodlands. It has already awarded more than 3,000 individual scholarships in the forest and wood sciences alone.

“The forest is an ecosystem that performs many important functions for nature and for humankind worldwide,” says Arngard Leifert, Team Leader Alumni Projects at the DAAD. Not only do forests store carbon, they also keep groundwater reservoirs in equilibrium, protect against soil erosion and provide the Earth’s most biodiverse habitats. Several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) therefore stress the need to protect forests and use them sustainably – in particular SDG 15 (Life on Land), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 6 (Clean Water) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). Because many people, especially in the Global South, rely on timber as an energy source or on income from selling forest honey, game meat or mushrooms, forests are also linked to the UN’s goals of overcoming poverty and hunger and ensuring an affordable supply of energy.

The DAAD is firmly committed to the SDGs. As Arngard Leifert explains, the DAAD’s alumni programmes for German universities, aimed at training and establishing lasting ties with international alumni, place particular emphasis on sustainability issues: “They enable Germany alumni to expand their expertise in order to bring about positive change in society – be it by exerting influence on politicians, supporting social initiatives or creating sustainable business practices.” As international alumni frequently hold key positions in science, politics, business and culture, they can play an important role in overcoming global challenges, she adds.

“The DAAD’s alumni programmes place particular emphasis on sustainability issues.”

Arngard Leifert, Team Leader Alumni Projects at the DAAD

Professor Víctor Ávila Åkerberg, who did his PhD at the University of Freiburg on a DAAD scholarship in 2009, is now Secretary General of the State of Mexico Council of Science and Technology (­COMECyT). An ecologist, he has in recent years organised a series of DAAD-funded alumni projects. Agroforestry is the focus of the latest project, involving the University of Göttingen (GAU), COMECyT and two Mexican universities. “Agroforestry combines ecological sustainability with economic stability, on the one hand by protecting biodiversity and on the other by contributing to food security,” explains ­Ávila Åkerberg. Two interdisciplinary seminars in 2024 and 2025 saw participants from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean discuss among other things Mexico’s “Sembrando Vida” (Sowing Life) funding programme, which supports farmers who plant for example fruit trees and corn on the same fields. The Germany alumni produced not only a textbook but also a YouTube film entitled “Agro­forestería para la vida” (Agroforestry for Life). Ávila ­Åkerberg had already produced documentary films with participants in earlier projects. Two DAAD-funded films about waste water management and about the species-rich Water Forest, which provides water for around 25 million people in the Mexico City region, have won awards at international festivals. Ávila Åkerberg also initiated a new co-funded scholarship programme run by the DAAD and COMECyT: starting in 2025, funding will be made available for 20 master’s students and doctoral candidates from Mexico each year who want to embark on a course of study at a German university.

“Our work has helped create an awareness of how valuable and worthy of protection Cameroon’s rainforests are.”

Professor Norbert Sewald, Bielefeld University

Although there is growing realisation of the huge importance of intact forest ecosystems – including when it comes to achieving the SDGs – there is no standardised international approach to teaching forestry at universities. With the aim of anchoring sustainability topics more firmly in ­curricula, ­Dresden University of Technology (TUD) has joined forces with universities on three continents to form the Global-SDG-Campus network. “Each ­partner university contributes its particular strengths to the network,” says Project Coordinator Dr Simon Benedikter from TUD. Khulna University in Bangladesh for example is situated close to the world’s largest mangrove forest, while the Uni­versity of Bamenda in Cameroon specialises in wildlife management, the National University of La Plata in Argentina focuses on fighting forest fires and Kasetsart University in Thailand has expertise in tropical plantation forestry. All the partners provided content for a new online elective module on the SDG’s contributions to the forest sciences. Once funding comes to an end
in 2025, the five universities intend to continue their collaboration and organise joint Forestry Field Schools for their students.

Ethnomedicinal plants from Cameroon’s rainforests are the central focus of Natural Products with Antiparasite and Antibacterial Activity (YaBiNaPA), an SDG Graduate School that is run by Bielefeld Univer­sity in Germany and the University of Yaoundé 1 (UY1) in Cameroon and involves collaboration between experts in the fields of ethnobotany, pharmacology, phytochemistry, biochemistry and pharmaceutical development. Like the SDG Partnerships, SDG Graduate Schools are funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Cameroon has a “unique therapeutic heritage” comprising more than 8,600 species of plants, says Professor Bruno Lenta Ndjakou from UY1: “Training experts to study and sustainably use these resources will allow their enormous potential as a source of medicine and income for the poorer section of the population to be leveraged.”

As Professor Lenta explains, the profile of UY1 has been greatly increased thanks to its well-equipped laboratory (which is to be expanded to become the country’s national reference laboratory), new international collaborations and a multitude of publications, seminars and conferences. Since 2017, the university has produced 40 graduates who have studied around one hundred ethnomedicinal plants and isolated numerous highly effective substances. Some of the medicinal substances for external application, which are similar to those prescribed by traditional healers, are already allowed to be sold. Last but not least, ­YaBiNaPA has contributed to protecting biodiversity, says Professor Norbert Sewald from Bielefeld University: “Our work has helped create an awareness of how valuable and worthy of protection Cameroon’s rainforests are.” —

Concerned with the sustainable use and protection of forests, the forest sciences are a discipline with a long tradition in Germany: a school of forestry was established in Thuringia as early as 1810 and was later incorporated into Dresden University of Technology. There are numerous degree courses in forestry at German ­universities, with major forest science faculties to be found at the Technical University of Munich, the University of Göttingen, the University of Freiburg and Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development.