The economic situation in Germany has pushed environmental concerns into the background, leaving the present conditions of forests cared for by only a few people. That is what the Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald e.V., or Association for the Protection of German Forests, published in a critical annual review of forests, landscapes and the environment.

The report specifically refers to the disastrous flood in East Germany last year as an example of this apathy. “It happened because [there was ] a lot of acceptable demand and changes of nature — sealing of landscape, restrictions of rivers, loss of forest lands — up to 128 hectare each day,” the report said, calling for the the protection of forests to be more than a “lip service” in future.

According to the report, another problem is that the high damage of German forests and the change for the worse of forests all over in Europe shows that past measures to control air pollution are not sufficient. The concentration of acid in forests grounds has multiplied more than 100 times in the last 50 years.

“[the] obtained energy compromises were disappointing for us,” the report said. But the association did praise the initiative of the Federal Republic of Germany to spend about a 500 million Euro for the worldwide development of regenerated energy as well as the republic's intent to host an international conference of these topics.