Alarm is being raised by landowners in Southwest Germany, where fires are already burning, prompted by the disastrous forest fires raging in France and Spain. To address this growing crisis, the Forest Chamber Baden-Württemberg is now urging the state government to implement a comprehensive action plan.
The forest owners insist that this package must include the expansion of resilient infrastructure, such as the establishment of wood storage sites, alongside faster and more effective financial support programs to aid forest restructuring. Adrian Sonder, the president of the Forest Chamber, stated on Sunday that forestry operations, municipal authorities, and fire departments need to collaborate more closely and integrate their efforts to enhance public protection.
Sonder also demands investment in modern technology, emphasizing the need for “the use of innovative forest fire detection in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence to discover and prevent forest fires in an early stage.”
The Forest Chamber Baden-Württemberg represents 250,000 private and 1,000 municipal forest owners. These owners hold two-thirds of Baden-Württemberg’s forest area, totaling over one million hectares. With 38 percent of the state’s land being forest (1.4 million hectares), Baden-Württemberg is classified as one of the most forested states in Germany.
