WOFO International

23/04/2026

Two wonderful conference days are over! We wish all participants good and save travels home.
Here are some first impressions, more are to come.

11/10/2025

First day of our 3rd international conference on women in forestry with a lot of great input and inspiration.
Thanks to the speakers and all participants, coming from 15 countrys, either online or on site here in
Great success:
With the new found associations in
Spain/ Catalonia Dones de Bosc and
Mongolia
we now have 6 full member asssociations!

27/08/2025

Conference in ICELAND!
Livestream:
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_YWVmNDYwNjgtNTVkMi00NzlhLWE2ZTItNzQ3MzI4MTVhOTkw%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%228a1f1d0a-876f-4ed5-8a0c-89d517bd788a%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%223e913807-6ff0-47a5-a6f4-e2ea395c7866%22%7d

See you in Reykjavík!

10/11/2024

WOFO Conference 2024

The international conference "Equality and Diversity in Forestry: The Changing Image of Forestry" was successfully held in Portorož/Slovenia, and it was both an honour and a pleasure for us to be co-host alongside the Hashtag project team 🤝!
The main objective of the conference was to launch a debate, to find innovative ways to increase the participation of women in forestry and to create new networks and contacts. The conference hosted 19 speakers who shed light on the topic through their eyes and experiences. The participation of 114 experts from 25 countries surprised us positively and gave us new impetus for future work.

Under the motto "Opening the umbrella" 🌲☂️🌳, WOFO International was taken literally as an umbrella organization, so that the focus was on supporting and networking projects and organizations. And we strongly hope to set up new roots in East and West: Two Mongolian women talked about their newly founded association and Catalan forest owners got tips for starting a new association in their Spanish homeland. Also, 22 ukrainian foresters were on site with the idea to found a national association as well.

The total of 13 lectures were supplemented on the second day with an excursion 🚌 to the Slovenian karst landscape on the border with Italy. There we learned a lot about the history of the region and the forest, including the major forest fire two years ago. The trees we planted together to support natural regeneration will be a reminder and a memory of our gathering.

The members of the organising committee of the Slovenian Forestry Institute, the Fem2forests consortium and the members of WOFO International would like to thank all participants for being with us and we hope that we will stay connected and meet again at the conference to be held in Iceland 🌋 in October 2025.

IFSA - International Forestry Students' Association Gozdarski inštitut Slovenije - Oddelek za gozdno tehniko in ekonomiko

24/10/2024

Join our conference via lifestream:

In just a few minutes, we will kick off the international conference "Equality and Diversity: Changing the Image of Forestry"!

We are excited to empower young women in the forestry sector and promote a transformative shift towards equality and inclusivity. 🚺🌲

🔗 Join us via Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86850986478

16/03/2024

On wednesday, March 13th, we had a first online talk. First, our chairwomen Dagmar Karisch-Gierer and Iza Pigan each shared some interesting facts and information about forestry and women in forestry in Poland and Austria.
After this we had time for a short introduction of some of our members, to get to know each other, and we talked about future plans and communication. We all agreed on having regular meetings like this every two or three months, where we want to learn more about all in WOFO represented countrys and ourselves.
We are also happy to announce our next general assembly in Slowenia, October 24th and 25th - more details will follow!

22/12/2023

29/10/2023

After being used to work and concentrate on daily tasks in the forest, it was quite umfamiliar and difficult for many of us to just be present and relax on our field trip about forest bathing on the second day. But with different "invitations" about sensing and imaginating we learned to experience the forest from a new perspective.

Katarzyna Khanna

27/10/2023

"Diverse teams are more successfull!" Maria Patek, Forest Women Austria

"As a woman you are still often held up from working in the field." Magda Szymańska, Forest Women Poland

"Women need to believe in their capability - we can do more than we often think." Valentina Kirnbauer-Schneider, CEO of a Kirnbauer saw mill

"Women in Forestry are world wide an important target group with a lot of potential, which we need to get more focused on." Elena Escobar Kraemmer, marketing manager for Stihl Austria