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The Institute of Forest Protection was founded in 2022 to tackle the enormous new challenges of forest protection under climate change. The occurrence of previously unknown complex diseases and the increase in unusually intense calamities are causing problems for the forest. In addition to the biotic causes of damage, increased attention is also paid to the interactions with abiotic stress such as storms, heat or drought. The latter not only cause direct damage, but also weaken the resistance and regenerative capacity of forest trees.

The central tasks of the institute are the development of short to long-term strategies and solutions to strengthen the resilience of the forest. This also includes the prevention and integrated control of pests and diseases in the forest as well as the strengthening of functional biodiversity. The institute is also involved in evaluating the effectiveness of plant protection products in the official authorisation process.

Our strategy

The Institute aims to make forests more resilient to diseases and pests by strengthening natural regulatory and defence mechanisms. To achieve this, we combine expertise from the fields of entomology, pathology, ecophysiology, remote sensing and epidemiological data analysis with forest ecosystem modelling and digital forest twins in a multidisciplinary approach. Our strategy is based on a simple logical approach:

1. record forest damage (terrestrial and remote sensing monitoring)

2. understand forest damage (physiological, biological and ecological processes)

3. plan resilient forests (development and validation of simulations)