Forests are good for you – and cause concern

Forests are good for people. So far, so clear. After all, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, around 200,000 children are taken out into nature each year – for example, to forest kindergartens or forest school camps. What works for children’s development and their understanding of nature applies just as much in adulthood; in Germany, there are designated therapeutic forests, and other nature-based interventions in the forest, such as forest bathing, are becoming increasingly popular. This makes it all the more surprising that the two fields – forest education and health science – have had little interaction with one another to date.

This is where the “Forest-Climate-Emotions” project comes in, led by Prof. Dr. Nicole Weydmann at Furtwangen University and designed in cooperation with the Baden-Württemberg Forest Research Institute (FVA) in Freiburg. “Climate emotions – that is, the feelings that arise in response to the damage that climate change causes to the forest and, consequently, to us – are a major issue for both adults and children,” says the professor, who has already conducted a research project on this topic which combined various artistic approaches to climate emotions. Now, she and her research team aim to investigate the extent to which the fields of education and mental health are – or could be – linked in relation to forests. “There are 80 trained forest educators in the state of Baden-Württemberg,” says Weydmann. “However, the health perspective is not yet really taken into account in their training.” Conversely, therapists are not familiarised with the concepts of forest education either. With her research team, Professor Weydmann is first documenting this “gap,” so to speak; she is mapping out the programmes and concepts which already exist, what therapeutic approaches are available, and which key players are involved.

Weydmann’s team at the HFU consists of two staff members who are a perfect fit for the project’s approach. In addition to her work at the HFU, Charlotte Pfahler has been working for two years as a research assistant in the Social Change Unit at the FVA in Freiburg. The sociologist wrote her master’s thesis on the topic of “climate anxiety”, examining, among other things, what motivates people to engage in civic activism. Pfahler serves as the liaison to the FVA and plans to link the Forest-Climate-Emotions project with the findings of the Human-Forest Monitor (an ongoing FVA public survey on perceptions of forests and forestry, including an in-depth study on climate and transformation emotions).
As a physiotherapist and health scientist, the field of prevention is particularly important to Christina Weber; in her thesis on the topic of “climate emotion”, she analysed the perspectives of forest owners and forest workers in the Upper Black Forest. “I’m interested in the extent to which forest education concepts already address the topic of mental health – and whether such concepts even exist yet,” says Weber.

In its first year, the project aims to “map” the topic. For this systematic inventory, the team is working closely with the Freiburg Regional Council and the Haus des Waldes in Stuttgart. “We will present our findings this summer and hope to then move forward with two doctoral positions,” says Nicole Weydmann. Over the next three to four years, formats could be developed and tested based on existing concepts to make climate emotions tangible and discussable. Nicole Weydmann explains,“We want to create spaces where climate concerns no longer leave people speechless, but can be transformed into concrete action.”