Activities of environmental NGOs in German forest policy - a preliminary stocktaking

For several years, environmental NGOs in Germany have been dealing with for est policy questions. The survey of the most important ones (Greenpeace, Ro bin Wood, WWF, Bund fur Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland. Naturschutzland Deutschland) shows that their activities are not restricted any mure to th e development of concepts for the protection and sustainable management of the forests. Using direct actions well-known fi om other fields of environm ental policy (e.g. e-mail actions, demonstrations) to an increasing extent, they are trying to urge forest owners and forest politicians to change for est policy and forest management towards sustainability in a broad sense. A ll of these organisations have developed an own profile in forest policy in volvement. However, especially in the case of forest certification, there i s a close cooperation. Due to personal disagreements and slight differences between the concepts, a close coalition of the NGOs in forest policy quest ions cannot be seen at the moment. With the help of strategic alliances, en vironmental NGOs try to find out possibilities of cooperation with the fore st sector. At the same time, they are investing a lot of resources in the f ield of private environmental standard setting. Buyers groups and organizat ions for the marketing of certified forest products are increasing the pres sure on forest owner to implement sustainable forestry as defined by the NG Os. in addition, detailed systems of monitoring (e.g. the European Forest S corecards of the WWF) are urging forest policy makers to compare their fore st policy activities with "benchmarks" in other countries. Taking into acco unt the professionalization of the organizational structures, it can be sta ted that the interest of the NGOs in German forestry will be a standing ele ment of their policies.