I love the forest - it’s a retreat and a source of inspiration at the same time

5 September 2023 Forests in photos

This September, we learn more about the winner of our 2022 PEFC Photo Contest. The photo that convinced our jury is ‘Small Woods in a Big Forest’, taken by Beate Magedin in Lilla Edets Municipality in Sweden.

In our interview, Beate told us how the forest keeps fascinating her, and what makes her photography so special.

How do you feel about forests, both professionally and personally?

I love the forest, it is a retreat and a source of inspiration at the same time. Our house is almost directly by the sea and despite this, I am magically drawn to the forest. My dogs also decelerate there, and we hold our noses in the wind together to absorb all the smells and our hearts beat in harmony with nature. It sounds so insanely cheesy, I know, but I have long thought about how to express myself, to describe the feeling.

How did the forest inspire you to take your winning photo?

Horsetails have fascinated me since my childhood, and 45 years later I still regularly crawl over the forest floor, because there is so much to see and discover.

Most photograph either the complete landscape, or the macro world. I do something in between. Birches are, after pines, my second favourite trees and I also depict them, although only as a water reservoir in their second life.

What do you think about the work that an organization such as PEFC does to care for forests?

I see the protection of the forest as one of the most important tasks of organizations such as PEFC. In the forefront of this is the prevention of clear-cutting, which is being practiced more and more often. Probably it happens for practical reasons, because it is difficult to get between trees that are not yet "mature" with these extremely heavy machines.

But only as a coherent area is the forest really an air conditioner for our warmer world. We need to protect it, and not to make Swiss cheese out of it. I see the PEFC logo more and more often on products of daily life, especially in the supermarket – the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon sends its regards.