German forest administrations and female foresters

Some aspects and fields for investigation and research

by Renate Späth

Introduction

Germany is said to be the "motherland" or home country of scientific and sustainable forestry. Since the end of the 17th century, due to severe forest devastation and therefore scarcity of wood and forests sustained yield (Nachhaltigkeit) as a model (Leitbild) in forestry started to become subject of scientific concern.

After the year 1825 huge reforestation programs have been launched, leading to the development of high-yielding forests on large areas. Scientific forestry is developing rapidly and lectured at German universities.

Later on, the knowledge, experience an approach of German forestry is to be found in the curricula of formal education of foresters in other countries.

Only recently I found a very interesting hint to "German-based forestry knowledge" I would like to present, especially knowing, that Oemijati Rachmatsjah will follow with her presentation:

As Mia Siscawati, a female forester from Indonesia and Focal Point for Asia, put it in her reflections on the results of the IFF-NGO Global Workshop "Underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation" in January 1999 (Costa Rica):

"...To be frank, I learned about a holistic concept of forests from elders of the Dayak Peoples in East Kalimantan, which is much more comprehensive compared to curricula of forestry education. With respect to German-based forestry knowledge which was historically developed since the 16th century and widespread almost to the whole world since then, it is now time for Indonesia and many other countries to adopt traditional knowledge and practices related to forest resources into curricula of formal education. I am personally hoping that this action will affect political will among politicians, bureaucrats, professionals and managers".(Siscawati 1999).

Even though German forests are definitely neglectable in size compared to the large forest areas other countries have there was nevertheless an important impact on practical and scientific forestry in other countries.

German foresters usually are proud to be part of a 200 year old tradition of sustainable forestry. But we have to consider that it also is a tradition that excluded women as trained foresters as well as women in general. Like Vera Hoffmann showed in her research that even though women have always been working in the forests there hasn't been much research or publication (Hoffmann 1998).

The part of NRW I come from has been extremely dependant on women working in the coppice forests. But most of the research done on coppice economy from the middle ages up to the Second World War doesn't mention this important fact.

Forest situation in Germany - a short overview

Germany has nearly 82 million inhabitants living on a surface only 35000 square kilometre bigger than Norway, which has 4.5 million inhabitants. The forest area of Germany stretches over 10.7 million hectares or around 30 % of the national territory. In this context I`d like to stress that there are no old growth forests or natural forests left in Germany, the whole forest is (wo-)man-made.

Agricultural area numbers up to 55 % and 15 % are roads, railways, cities and other infrastuctural areas a highly industrialised country needs.

Area percentage of tree species groups:

• 35% spruce and other conifers
• 31% pine and larch trees
• 25% beech and other deciduous trees like maple, ash etc.
• 9% oak
• Since 1960, the percentage of deciduous trees has been raised from 28% to 34%.
• 43% of the forest area in Germany consist of mixed stands, 13 % of deciduous stands and 44 % of coniferous stands (BMELF, without date).

Forest administration in Germany and Nordrhein-Westfalen

Politically spoken, Germany is a federation of 16 "Laender", that means countries with parliaments of their own and some legislative power on their own. And forest legislation and administration is a federal task.

So we have a Federal Forest Act serving as a framework law and 16 different forest laws and administrations of the "laender".

The "Land" that I come from, Nordrhein-Westfalen, counts 18 Million inhabitants, this is around 520 inhabitant per square kilometre (Norway: 13,5 per square km).

18 Million inhabitants in NRW is as much as the whole population of Norway, Sweden and Finland together.

In NRW 67 % of the forests are private owned, 2 % belong to the Federal State, 18 % are community forests an 13 % are owned by the "Land" Nordrhein-Westfalen.

The structure of the forest administration is quite complicated and differs from "Land" to "Land" considerably (as does the ownership due to different historical developments). In NRW there are three levels of administration: 35 local forest offices, two regional forest offices which coordinate and control the local offices and a division of forestry within the ministry of environment. That's where I am working.

The total number of employees who are working as foresters are approximately 630 : 606 men and 24 women. Let us compare this figure with two more "landau" : Rheinland-Pfalz and Niedersachsen, both bordering NRW.

• In Rheinland-Pfalz approximately 960 people are employed as foresters: 924 men and 36 women.
• In Niedersachsen`s state forest administration there are 857 foresters employed 832 men and 25 women.

With the exception of the "new Laender (5)", that means the countries of the former German Democratic Republic, the situation is more ore less the same.

I was told that within the former GDR there were approximately 25 % women within the forest administrations. Nowadays it might be less because after the reunification there were severe staff reductions and, so I was told by female foresters, women were the first to be "set free" from work.

Unfortunately we donut have exact figures of female foresters employment yet. It is a very interesting and revealing fact that neither the Federal Report on Forestry nor the Reports of the "Laender" in general include information on gender issues and women employment.

Female Foresters and Administration

At the end of the millennium and the beginning of the 21. century, after 30 years of women's liberation movement we might ask the interesting question : what are the reasons for the neglectable number of female foresters working in German forest administrations? I will focus on the old German Federal Republic, because that is were I grew up, was educated and work. But I think there is a strong need of research on the different development in forestry education and employment with reference to gender aspects of the two Germany after the Second World War. Vera Hoffmann (1998) did already mention the different situation for female forest workers in her research.

The main reason is said to be : the lack of formal education!

Academic training/University education

Today in Germany one might choose between two possibilities to study forestry:

1. either one starts studying at a professional school for forestry or
2. at a University

Depending which way you choose you have to study

1. for 3 years and 1 year of practice or
2. for 4 years with half a year of practice.

While studying forestry at a university theoretically has been possible for women after the second world war (I don't know about the situation before), it was impossible to get a more practical training as a forest officer in the fields. This is due to the fact that up to the beginning of the seventieth of this century (!) the "Laender" had their own training system for practical forest officers. This ended in 1974 when the professional schools were established and the only condition was a high school grade. This marked the formal end of absolute male dominance in practical forestry. Formally it was no longer possible to exclude women from training, from studying at the professional schools.

Starting in the seventieth you could find one or two women per semester. When I started studying in 1981 I was very astonished to find myself the only woman with 68 men. The following semester there were 4 women starting to study and so on.

The statistical numbers 1996/1997 show that about 16 % of all students who start studying at the professional school are women and about 25% at the university.

But even now with more and more women studying forestry in general you won't find them adequately afterwards within the forest administrations.

One of the main reasons is, that all forest administrations in the German "Laender" are undergoing severe structural changes. The almost inevitable consequence of this policy is a significant loss of jobs.

In Nordrhein-Westfalen we don't have vacancies for higher forest officers up to the year 2015 ! This doesn't only mean less and lesser people within the forest administration but also that the forest officers and as a consequence the administration will be overaged.

In Rheinland-Pfalz and Niedersachsen together per annum there are about 5 to 8 job vacancies in the forest administrations. To fill these vacancies the forest administrations in general tend to take the forest students with the best exam marks.

It would be very interesting to ask critically how exam marks are achieved, but this isn't the place and time to do this. What I would like to point out is, that under these given conditions female forest students have to pass their examinations with an A just to have a small chance to get a job within a forest administration.

Maybe you know the sentence:

"Women always have to be better than men, fortunately this isn't very hard"

but in reality it isn't that easy.

As a result we might conclude: the first time in the history of German forestry that it would be possible to employ women foresters the forest administrations reduce their staff dramatically and hardly choose at all.

In this respect women are the looser of a development that's called lean administration ("Schlanker Staat").

Please do allow some personal remarks:

I think that in general foresters responsible for staff management don't feel to bad about this situation, because prejudice against women working as foresters is still very strong. But this would be an interesting field of investigation to prove the subjective impressions a lot of us women have.

Female foresters within the administration

Let us now have a closer look at the women inside the administrations.

• Where do they work?
• What about making careers?
• What about work and having children?
• What about Job sharing etc.

Unfortunately we have a very small data base to make any conclusions, this might be another field of closer investigation. There is a tendency for women to work in those fields of forestry that aren't regarded as the "Heart of forestry" like head of local forest offices or responsible division managers for silviculture, timber market, technology, regional and international forest policy etc. Women often do work in offices being responsible for

• environmental education as supplement of school education
• forests and nature conservation
• public relations
• environmental issues
• regional planning issues etc.

Reflecting my own experiences and the ones of other female foresters within the forest administrations there is no real willingness to cope with the needs and ideas of women foresters. This is where the second strong reason for the exclusion of women has to be presented:

The Gender aspects of bureaucracy/administrations

German State administrations organisational structures in general as well as forestry administration in specific are rooted in a military background. While forestry administrations were strongly linked with military experience especially in the former Prussia (Mantel 1990) the organisational structure of bureaucracy in general was built after the inner structure of military organisations (Höying 1998). Characteristics of bureaucracy are

• been distinguished into different areas of jurisdiction
• with a hierarchical structure allowing supervision and
• ontrol of subordinates
• The use of written files
• a full time commitment of employees.

The tradition of bureaucracy is strongly linked with the exclusion of women, who -from 1900 onward- were allowed to work in subordinate positions only. If they married they could be fired. Even in the "Weimarer Republic" women could be fired if they were "sufficiently cared for" (Pfarr 1989).

Growing research has begun to throw important light on the question, whether the use of women as subordinate workers in routine clerical work helped to develop the bureaucratic structures of today, especially to bolster the career of men (Savage and Witz 1992).

Forest administrations and changes in society

But while discussions about bureaucracy and administration in general are meanwhile challenged by feminist critique, forest administrations up to now don't "profit". Forestry administrations haven't yet been challenged by educated and well-trained female colleagues. Quite a lot women don`t feel at ease with the bureaucratic structures but it seems to be too courageous to challenge the bureaucratic structures.

By the way it is an interesting fact that the German forest administrations are talking of "reforms", but the only thing they do is reducing staff, not changing structures.

Women within administrations don't make "careers" easily. This is due to the fact, that most women don't have organisations or individuals to support them. Men have. Especially in forestry with their long history of fraternities. And men do support each other.

Maybe times changed a little and prejudice against female foresters who want to work not only part time isn't as strong as it has been 15 years ago. But we are far from "normal" in a sense that forest administrations do take all positive actions possible to raise the figure of female foresters significantly.

German forestry administrations in general don't think that they missed something, some certain qualities of women. Nowadays once in while one might read about Gender issues in industrial companies and in state administrations. There you find opinions like:

• we need the communicative, team-oriented qualities of women,
• we need people, who like to find new, creative ways in
• solving the complex problems our societies create
• women do have these innovative qualities
• we need women in administrations to change the structure of
• organisations radically

I never came across research or publications dealing with women and their qualities with respect to forest administrations.

In 1988 twelve women, most of us jsut at the beginning of our "career in forestry" went together to Tuscany for one week. Afterwards I wrote an article about the results of this week of work and discussions on our point of view and our demands. Forestry journals refused to print the article with the reason that it wasn`t of general interest and "not scientific".

If one studies forestry journals nowadays one might find quite a few articles describing, sometimes almost complaining, about the crisis of forestry in Germany, about loosing the identity, the social importance and the clear aims of forestry. Forestry, it is said, is facing a deep crisis, foresters in Germany are loosing their high reputation, they have to cope with all kind of other organisations like environmental and social NGO`s and with the public in general. Reading those articles I sometimes get the feeling that they aren`t "scientifc" at all.

To my opinion, forest administrations tend to avoid productive discussion about these changes in society and their role in it.

Heeg (1972) published a survey dealing with the "Sociology of forest officers", especially the job description "head of local forest department". One of his conclusions was that men who decide to study forestry might have a predisposition for a certain critique of civilisation. This has been proofed by Oesten (in :Seling 1997) and in a certain way by Seling (1997).

To be a forester is seen to be much more a vocation than a job like others. Foresters tend to stick to their own profession, which might lead to some kind of intellectual isolation.

Working in an administration I am able to strongly support these conclusions.

I think that it would be very helpful to look at the sociology of foresters from a gender point of view. As far as I know in Germany nobody did this up to now.

It would be fascinating to find answers to the question if female foresters do have a similar self-conception and job description like their male colleagues.

Or if, the few women we are, we don't suffer that much because most of us never adopted the male job vocation, because we always were different. To be a woman was enough to be regarded as not belonging into this "closed shop system" of German forestry.

The female foresters network

In April 1987 around 80 women, most of us students at that time, met for a weekend to discuss the views and needs of women in forestry. Feeling isolated, in many respect feeling like constantly crossing borderlines, felling like not fitting in the roles men in forestry wanted us to play, looking for positive , encouraging experiences we met every year up to now for at least a weekend.

Our annual meetings are a mixture of exchanging experiences, discussing in working groups specific topics like

• positive action plans for women
• self-conception of women in forestry
• women, jobs and children
• public relations
• language and discrimination
• where and what to work after studying,
• and excursions into the forests.

Since a couple of years German female foresters go for a week to eastern countries like Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. In exchange next year we will invite female foresters from those countries to come to Germany.

Let me invite to join our meeting in 2000, all of you are very welcomed.

The main reason to meet has been (and maybe will be in the future) to encourage each other without the need to celebrate a sisterhood that's an illusion, because women don't have to love each other only because they are women. But to demonstrate a certain kind of solidarity within a man's world that isn't easy to change at all.

German women's movement historically always has been reform-oriented, lacking the radical thinking and action of women in other countries. I wish we might learn a little from women in other countries. First step to do so means to communicate, to talk to each other and to listen to the different needs and wishes and social realities we have grown up with.

I'm very grateful that the Scandinavian women organised this first international symposium which gave us the opportunity to get to know each other. I think there will be a lot of research areas on women and forestry and I'm sure there will be challenging and fascinating results.

Let us Become Visible. For the future of women but also with respect towards our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers who hardly ever are mentioned but nevertheless were the ones society and forests even in European countries depended on.

Literature

BMELF: Forest Report by the Federal Government without Year

Landeswaldbericht Nordrhein-Westfalen 1996, Düsseldorf

Heeg, Bernhard (1973): Zur Soziologie der Forstbeamten, Schriftenreihe der Forstwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Freiburg, Band 11, Freiburg

Höying, Stephan; Puchert, Ralf (1998): Die Verhinderung der beruflichen Gleichstellung, Bielefeld

Hoffmann, Vera (1998): Die Arbeitssituation der Waldarbeiterinnen in Deutschland, Agrarwissenschaftliche Forschungsergebnisse, Band 14, Hamburg

Mantel, Kurt (1990): Wald und Forst in der Geschichte, Hannover

Pfarr, Heide, Bertelsmann, Klaus 1989: Diskriminierung im Erwerbsleben, Baden-Baden

Sascawati, Mia 1999: Reflections on the results of the Global Workshop, email

Seling, Irene (1997):Die Dauerwaldbewegung in den Jahren zwischen 1880 und 1930, Schriften aus dem Institut für Forstökonomie der Universität Freiburg, Band 8, Freiburg

Witz, Anne, Savage, Mike (1992): Gender and Bureaucracy, Oxford, Cambridge

Mündliche Mitteilungen zu weiblichen Forstbeamten der Landesforstverwaltungen Rheinland-Pfalz und Niedersachsen 1999 von Frau Biebel, Rheinland-Pfalz und Antje Feldhusen, Niedersachsen