Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald

Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald Bundesverband e. V. (SDW) describes itself as part of non-governmental nature conservation, with forest protection at the center of its work. It states that it promotes the planting of new trees, stands for contemporary environmental education and forest pedagogy, and develops education and information projects for forest educators and interested people. It says it works together with its state associations as a nationwide team of around ninety staff, and that its 25,000 members are organized in around 350 SDW groups carrying out active nature conservation work locally. The SDW traces its beginnings to 1947, when 500 citizens came together in Bad Honnef near Bonn shortly before Christmas to stop further forest loss as an association.

According to the SDW's own history page, 500 citizens came together in Bad Honnef near Bonn shortly before Christmas 1947 to stop further forest loss as an association. The forest was suffering from excessive timber extraction by the population and from the consequences of the war, and ten percent of the forest had already been lost. Two years later, the SDW had achieved the end of Allied logging in domestic forests. Although the association could then have dissolved itself, the founding meeting had already addressed the need for adults and children to become better acquainted with the forest in order to advocate for its protection, under the principle 'You only protect what you know.' The SDW intensified its public relations work for the forest, including an exhibition in a railway carriage that toured through Germany to point out the condition of the forest. It sought to reach young people in particular, creating youth forest homes, forest schools and school forests and organizing forest youth games, which the SDW describes as the first beginnings of its later engagement in forest pedagogy. In 1957 the Deutsche Waldjugend (DWJ) was founded as its own youth organization, in which children and young people also engage practically for the forest. In 1952 the SDW introduced the 'Day of the Tree'.

Non-governmental nature conservation association focused on forest protection and forest education

1. 1SDW: Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald Bundesverband: SDWsdw.de
2. 2Geschichte der SDW: SDWsdw.de