Returning to the show calendar for the first time since before the pandemic, Interforst was back with a bang. Forestry Journal joined thousands of guests at Messe München last month, as 31,000 visitors and more than 300 exhibitors ensured there was plenty to see. In this series of articles, we provide a small taste of what was on offer. 

MANAGING a woodland – and all that entails – is one thing, but what if you can’t even find it in the first place? That’s a problem which many private woodland owners across Europe have faced and one which Woods App, a new smartphone application, can help solve. 

The first stop on Interforst’s Innovation Tour, which took visitors around eight of the 30 nominees for the KWF Members Award, the app allows users to identify the exact boundaries of their site, receive notifications, and communicate directly with forest authorities. Essentially it puts the woodlands in your pocket. 

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Andrea Riegner, product manager, said: “That opens up many cool ways of communication. You can chat with your forest expert and they can send you messages specific to your forest; if there are bark beetle issues, for example. The communication is a strong part of the app and that results from first identifying the location.” 

In Germany, where Woods App is currently available, it’s not uncommon for residents to inherit forests without any clear location. Whereas in the past the only solution would have been hours spent trawling through maps, now users can find their woodlands in the same length of time it takes them to post on social media. 

Andrea, who was joined on the stand by founder Benedikt Pointner, said: “If there is a problem, for instance, you can be informed by those vitality layers of information or you might be contacted by a forest expert, who will always just be a click away.

“At the moment it is being used just in Germany but we are working on a more international basis.”