Today, the Swiss forestry association (SFV) celebrated its 175th anniversary. Founded in 1843, three decades before the enactment of the first forest law in Switzerland (Forestry Police in high mountains law, 1876), the association was founded to counter overexploitation of mountain forests, which increasingly led to flooding hazards. A major objective of the SFV back then was, and still is, defined as the conservation of forests to ensure a sustainable protection against natural hazards, such as torrential floods, snow avalanches, rockfall, shallow landslides and excessive erosion. Today, in addition, forests have to produce sufficient wood and fiber resources (e.g., as a piece in the huge puzzle of the solution for today's plastic pollution problem), they supply biodiversity, recreation and drinking water and have a cooling effect during heat waves, which increasingly occur.
During the opening speech of the anniversary seminar "Visions for the forest", Doris Leuthard, Swiss Minister of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, stressed the importance of the role forests play in reducing natural hazard risks. Moreover, climate change complicates the task of properly managing these protection forests, since intensities and frequencies of natural hazards increase in given areas. At the same time, disturbances, such as droughts, forest fires, or invasive insects and tree species gain importance as well, she said. Especially in combination with all other services forests need to provide, the task becomes complex and the potential for future conflicts is rising. Solutions can be found by teaming up policy makers, practitioners and scientists. Right there, associations such as SFV and ecorisQ can provide an enourmous added-value by taking the lead in connecting and mobilising experience and scientific knowledge.
