The network comprises forest research institutes, forest administrations, forest owner associations and other non-governmental organisations offering access to expert knowledge. The interactive platform has established itself in Central Europe as the leading online-information source for a wide range of forestry and forest-related topics. In July 2023, over 2700 German-language and approx. 950 foreign-language articles were available..[3]
The Federal Research Institute (WSL) had the idea of making relevant practical knowledge from forestry and environmental science available for everyone in an easily accessible forum. In the summer of 2003, the prototype www.waldwissen.ch went online.
The experience gained from www.waldwissen.ch was very positive. At the same time, the four research institutes involved in forest research FVA, LWF, BFW, WSL intensified their efforts to develop a joint forest information system with contents from international sources. This project was part of the KnowForAlp Initiative comprising in total 19 research institutes from seven countries. From this initiative emerged www.waldwissen.net which went online on 16 February 2005.[5][6][7]
Since then, the number of contributions to www.waldwissen.net and the supply of forestry expertise has continued to grow. In 2007, www.waldwissen.net was awarded the Schweighofer Innovation Award for Forestry with a total of 50.000 euros in prize money.[8] The internationality, multilingualism and the professionalism of the contributions to www.waldwissen.net made an especially favourable impression on the jury.[9][10] The prize money was used for the further development and the redesign of the website. Since mid-2015 www.waldwissen.net is also available as a Mobile app for Android and Apple iOS.[11][12]