An enriching volunteering experience with the Mountain Forest Project

It was rain­ing cats and dogs when I arrived at Schaan-Vaduz Youth Hos­tel in Liecht­en­stein on 28 April. This was where I had come to meet nine moti­vat­ed peo­ple who had spent a week vol­un­teer­ing with the Swiss Youth Hos­tels Moun­tain For­est Project that has been launched to mark the organ­i­sa­tion’s 100th anniver­sary. Today is the last day. The atmos­phere is good and the group is still high­ly moti­vat­ed after the pre­vi­ous days of hard work.

Arriv­ing punc­tu­al­ly at 7.45 am, the Moun­tain For­est Project man­ag­er Andri calls the group togeth­er. I can’t wait to see what they’ve been up to.

Threatened forests

On the way, we stop briefly to pick up piles of wood and tools at the forester’s lodge. Over the past four days, the par­tic­i­pants have cleared a large area of for­est and removed lots of branch­es. Plant­i­ng ash and maple trees is on today’s agen­da. I’m excit­ed to have the chance to plant a tree myself. Andri guides me through the process. It’s more stren­u­ous than I thought, espe­cial­ly because I first have to hack out a hole in the over­grown ter­rain. This isn’t such an easy task for a desk jock­ey like me! 😉

As they grow so quick­ly, large num­bers of fir trees were plant­ed to sup­ply the demand cre­at­ed by major Euro­pean wars. This result­ed in an unfavourable mono­cul­ture. The trees end up com­pet­ing with each oth­er and then stop grow­ing. But these are not the only prob­lems that alpine forests are strug­gling with. Drought, storms and pest infes­ta­tions are becom­ing more per­va­sive year on year.

Working for the mountain forest to benefit all

The nine par­tic­i­pants come from France, Ger­many and Switzer­land, and are aged between 19 and 69. Dur­ing lunch in the forester’s lodge (it is still pour­ing down out­side), you can feel how close the group has become even after this short time – friend­ships have been formed.

Some of the par­tic­i­pants are here for the first time and some take part in a moun­tain for­est pro­ject every year. But they all share the same mis­sion: to do some­thing good for the com­mu­ni­ty and to pro­tect the cul­tur­al land­scape of the alpine region through vol­un­tary work. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it is not pos­si­ble to con­serve and main­tain the moun­tain for­est in a cost-effec­tive man­ner, which is why the Moun­tain For­est Project Foun­da­tion has set itself the goal of doing just that.

Fantastic enrichment opportunities

We will fin­ish the work this Fri­day a lit­tle ear­li­er than usu­al. Once the tools have been cleaned, we head back to the hos­tel. We’re com­plete­ly soaked, so every­one is glad to take their turn under a hot show­er.

What did I take away from that day? I found it incred­i­bly enrich­ing to be out­doors and to get involved myself. Despite the bad weath­er, it was kind of idyl­lic. It warmed my heart to see how close and well-acquaint­ed the par­tic­i­pants seemed after just five days.