Fotoessay: WALDHAUS IN THE SCHWARZWALD (Satis Shroff)

Fotoessay: WALDHAUS IN THE BLACK FOREST (Satis Shroff)

 

A Writer's Journal 2015

WALDHAUS: an eco-educational centre (Satis Shroff)

FREIBURG has a five-year old Waldhaus (forest house), which is an ecological centre, located on the right side of the tram-stop Wohnhalde 6.

The Waldhaus is open for the public, scientists, teachers, students, wood-specialists, families and visitors. At the beginning of the 18^th century there was a great destruction of forests and it was Hans Carl von Carlowitz who found the appropriate words and called it a challenge to use wood so that it can be sustainable and yet exist for usage. He wrote words to the effect in his forest-handbook in 1713.

Some forth-five years ago the word 'Waldsterben,' meaning the death of the forest became a household world even in the English language. Waldsterben was a theme in Radio Nepal when I was a B.Sc. student in Kathmandu. As a result we have become careful, conscious and think in sustainable terms, and take only so much wood from the forest and plant just as many saplings. This sustainable-approach has made forestry much more advanced than other economic sectors, and is a careful and well-balanced use of natural resources.

The aim of the Freiburger Waldhaus is to generate consciousness among people, and is a learning-and -experience centre devoted to the ecology of the forest and its sustainability. It has become an excellent centre for ecolocical education thanks to the cooperation between the Albert-Ludwigs-university, forest experiment and research centre, the Regierungspräsidium Freiburg and other scientific institutes, schools as well as the University of Applied Education. The Waldhaus was inaugurated in autumn 2008 and has established itself as an ecological education institution.

You can take part in forest excursions, listen to the birds of the Black Forest in groups, and visit 'Waltraud' the highest tree in Germany and also do a mountain-bike tour in the city owned forest.

An interesting attractions for both young and elderly people is the sculpture path called 'WaldMenschen' (forest people) which was created by my friend Thomas Rees, a fellow Kappeler. On your way along the Nature path, you'll be surprised by Thomas Rees' fantastic Forest People. Let your fantasy carry you away as you walk in the forest. What if...the trees and the figures start walking?

Middle Europe is a wooded part of the Continent and these wooded areas have always had something threatening and scary about them, especially the dark forests, despite the fact that it gave the people protection, raw materials (ores, wood, stone for building) and served also as a source of food due to the fauna.

The role of the forest is mirrored till even today in the many fairy tales and legends we have grown up with. As a result the experiences of the woods have found a home in the souls of the people of Europe. Such mystic and ghoulish figures are to be seen during the fasnet ceremonies in which winter is banished by the many zunfts, vereins and cliques in the Alpine world, whereby an effigy of winter is burnt in a bonfire.