The German government has created a national award for the protection of nature (“Deutscher Naturschutzpreis”). Under the helm of the German federal office in charge of the environment, all the first awards went to projects and organizations dedicated to the rescue and/or development of regional forests, plus a lifetime award for an veteran official in the forest administration, Georg Sperber, who spent his professional life trying to benefit the forests. The awards were put out by Norbert Röttgen, federal minister of environment, but the whole initiative was funded by Jack Wolfskin through a donation of €250,000.