Fifteen years ago, UNESCO recognised Germany’s beech forests, as part of a European network, as World Natural Heritage. To mark the occasion, the Federal Ministry for the Environment invited experts to a conference at Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) in September 2026.
Since 2023, the ECONICS INSTITUTE has been studying the Schöneberg Forest in the Lower Oder Valley National Park. Left to develop wild, without forestry or hunting interventions, the former managed forest has become a wild wood and an open-air laboratory for forest development under extreme climate conditions. To make forest change tangible for many people, we ask for your support.
Germany is losing its natural air conditioning: The ECONICS Green-Moist-Cool Index 2026, presented today by the ECONICS INSTITUTE together with NABU, shows, where ecosystems are particularly high-performing and where they urgently need restoration, based on environmental data. The five-year trend for the years 2021 to 2025 is alarming: The working capacity of many ecosystems is diminished.
On 8 July 2026 Prof. Ibisch was invited as a guest speaker on the occasion of the annual conference of the Association des Forestiers Luxembourgeois (Asbl) at Château de Bourscheid. Forests are complex systems and insights from ecosystem ecology have tangible implications for the aims and practices of forest management in the climate crisis.
On 4 July 2026, Prof. Ibisch spoke on the topic ‘Greener, wetter and cooler: Nature in Germany needs to do more (and it can, if we support it)’. The talk was part of the GreenPulse festival, organised by the elobau Foundation, a partner of the Social-Ecological Forest Management study programme. Nature is not our service provider, but it does work for us. The good news is that we can help it do so.
On 29 June, the Socialecological Forest Management study programme, in cooperation with the ECONICS INSTITUTE invited a whole pluriverse to the Eberswalde Univerisity for Sustainable Development. The evening, featuring Ecuadorian economist and politician Alberto Acosta, journalist Sandra Weiss, and GRUPO SAL, explored the question how we might live within the world, rather than off of it.
To mark the 15th anniversary of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site “Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe”, a specialist conference will take place in Eberswalde in September 2026. The event brings together experts from research, conservation management, policy and practice to discuss current developments surrounding Europe’s extraordinary beech forest ecosystems.
The first conference of the Forest-Alliance (Wald-Allianz) brought together over 150 people from forestry practice, science, politics, and civil society in Meiningen, Thuringia. The focus was on exchanging experiences and learning from one another. Just as in the nested forest ecosystem, positive feedback loops emerge in this inspiring network for social-ecological forest management!
On February 20, 2026, more than 40 representatives from municipalities, Berlin districts and rural counties, organizations and institutions, public administrations, and businesses gathered in the Bürgersaal in Bernau. The occasion was a workshop to discuss the feasibility study for a possible “Berlin-Barnim Biosphere Region.” In presentations, a plenary discussion, and two moderated group sessions, the participants compiled the strengths, challenges, visions, and expectations of the process for the establishment of a possible biosphere region.