Climate change has us firmly in its grip and is causing our local forests to deteriorate. That's why we want to help and have launched a project to support forests in Germany.

In 2021, we put out our feelers and antennas and looked for a damaged piece of forest that we could take care of. And lo and behold! After a long search, many conversations and appeals, we found it: our future wijld forest. The still quite barren forest area in the Sauerland near Marsberg extends over 81,000 m² and is just waiting to be planted and renaturalized!

And that's where you come in, because this heartfelt project can only be achieved together and with every order on wijld.com you help to protect a piece of forest. Each order is for exactly 0.6 m² of forest area that we will reforest and care for in order to one day create a healthy forest. This task will not be easy and is a real challenge. Creating a healthy ecosystem requires a lot of planning, time and patience. With an area of ​​8.1 hectares, we are currently expecting to plant around 10,500 trees. However, depending on how many large and small tree species we need for a well-established mixed forest, the number may vary slightly. Of course, before each planting, it must be carefully checked which main and secondary trees are suitable for the location and which will have the most benefit for nature and the environment in the long term.

But just the idea that our forest (once it has grown big and strong) can bind up to 81 tons of CO2 annually makes us smile and get planting full of motivation!

It is particularly important to us that everyone can actively help and experience the progress of our reforestation and renaturation. That is why we want to enable anyone who is interested, as well as school classes or forestry students, to accompany Waldemar during the development process and help shape our project.

However, our forest in the Sauerland is only the first of many more forests that we want to protect. Our long-term goal is to save as many forest areas affected by the climate crisis and destroyed by environmental damage as possible. This is where our idea came from to speed up our work through forest sponsorships and together with you, and not only to protect the first 8.1 hectares of forest for the future, but also to acquire and renature further areas as quickly as possible. After all, we can always achieve more together.

Did you know that the term "sustainability" comes from forestry? Due to an increasing regional shortage of wood, actual forestry emerged in the early 18th century and replaced the uncontrolled exploitation of forests that had prevailed until then. The basic idea of ​​sustainable forestry can be summarized as follows: only as much wood should be used as can grow back naturally. Sustainable forestry also ensures that newly planted trees are not monocultures, which are more susceptible to pests on the one hand and damage soils and deprive animals of their habitat on the other.

But how can you plant trees on the one hand and use wood for clothing, for example, on the other? What may not seem to fit together at first makes even more sense once you know the background:

Processing trees is right and important. At their best, a tree produces oxygen, provides a habitat and binds CO². With trees from sustainable forestry, the main aim is to make optimal use of the CO² bound in them, which is why they are felled again (only after many years). If this did not happen, many of them would die due to a lack of light or fungal infestation, among other things, and would rot and release the bound carbon back into the air. The felled trees therefore form a long-term CO² store and are also perfectly suited to be used as an environmentally friendly material in a wide variety of areas.