Paper short abstract:

In recent years, a number of new reforestation initiatives have been founded in Germany in the context of increasing forest damages. Interviews with the respective founders have laid open both solastalgia as well as eco-anxiety as core motivational forces to go from 0 to 100 in their engagement.

Paper long abstract:

After repeated hot and dry summers in 2018 and 2019 and related massive damages by bark beetles in too often monoculture environments, many German forests have been significantly harmed. In some cases, whole plots have suffered the death of certain tree species. Concern has grown quickly, has been taken up by the media and swiftly spread into the wider public. Partly in response, partly in parallel, numerous individuals who had until then not been environmental activists founded initiatives to support reforestation. The paper presents the data gathered from interviews with their respective founders on their motivation, which significantly hightlights both solastalgia and eco-anxiety as driving factors. Hence, we can see an example of relatively rapid mobilization of activism based on these emotions, which in other contexts have been described as paralyzing.