Philipp Mack

• Since 2019
  PhD at the University of Freiburg within the RTG Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple-use Landscapes of Central Europe (ConFoBi ) – Project C2.
• 2015-2019
  M.Sc. Geography: Global Change – regional sustainability, University of Innsbruck in Austria.
  Thesis: Environmental- and Post-Frontier Governance in Southwest Pará. Local Implications from a perspective of Political Ecology.
• 2014
  International Relations, semester abroad at University of São Paulo in Brazil.
• 2012-2015
  B.Sc. Geography, University of Innsbruck in Austria.
  Thesis: “Possibilities of Global Environmental Governance to regulate environmental problems of global scale. The example of the BR-163 highway Cuiabá – Santarém (Brazil)“.

In my PhD-research I focus on discourses around forest controversies in Germany. I do so by looking at different forms of material such as newspaper articles, press releases, parliamentarian debates and social media. I am particularly interested in how power-knowledge relations shape discursive dominance in public and political debates. By disentangling the entrenched forestry and nature conservation discourses, I aim to stress the complexity of forest-related debates. In this context, I scrutinize the apparent polarization between forestry and nature conservation and reveal its underlying drivers. Being trained in Human Geography with a focus on Political Ecology I am further interested in how forest practitioners relate to the (politicized) environment they manage. In this context, my work in the DivInKo project focussed on the diversity of private forest owners drawing on the concept of relational values. In my current project eco2adapt, I aim to explore how forest and climate managers in different European case studies make sense of their experiences related to climate change.

Sporadic teaching in the following modules

• Analyse der Waldpolitik, M. Sc. Forstwissenschaften; UFR
• ConFoBi module, M.Sc. Environmental Sciences, Forestry Sciences; UFR
• Umweltpolitik und -geschichte, B.Sc. Forstwissenschaften, Umweltwissenschaften; UFR

• Klingenfuß, S., John, M., Halla, T., Loch, T. K., Mack, P., Meyers, B., Mikoleit, R., & Peltola, T. (2025). Workshop: Stories of the Understory. Research Ideas and Outcomes, 11. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.11.e164067
• Mack, P., Wallin, I., Zwickel, M. S., Pfistner, J., König, L., & Kleinschmit, D. (2025). Calling into the void? German forest dieback 2.0 debate on Twitter. A case study to operationalize the analysis of discursive power in hybrid media systems. Forest Policy and Economics, 172, 103447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103447
• Pfahler, C., Zobel, M., Häublein, S., & Mack, P. (2025). Tagungsbericht zum zweiten Soziologischen Waldsymposium am 17.-18. Oktober 2024 an der FVA Freiburg. SuN – Soziologie Und Nachhaltigkeit – Beiträge Zur Sozial-Ökologischen Transformationsforschung. https://doi.org/10.17879/sun-2024-6291
• Mack, P., Hars, B., Kremer, J., Obert, I., Laura, W., & Selter, A. (2025). Kleinprivatwaldberatung : Diversität anerkennen. AFZ Der Wald, 1, 31–34.
• Mack, P., Leonhäuser, J., & Kleinschmit, D. (2024). Und wenn sie schon gestorben sind, dann sterben sie noch heute. Akteure und ihre Positionen in der Debatte um das Waldsterben 2.0. AFJZ, 193(7–8), 129–148.
• Mack, P., Kremer, J., & Kleinschmit, D. (2023). Forest dieback reframed and revisited ? Forests ( re ) negotiated in the German media between forestry and nature conservation. Forest Policy and Economics, 147, 102883. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102883
• Allerberger, F., Emrich, L., Heuser, J., Mack, P., Weimar, J., & Weiß, M. (2021). Zur gesellschaftlichen Verantwortung der Wissenschaft: Die Sicht der studentischen »Initiative Nachhaltige Universität Innsbruck«. In M. Dickel & J. Böhmer (Eds.), Verantwortung der Geographie (pp. 149–172). https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839456651-008
• Klingler, M., & Mack, P. (2020). Post-frontier governance up in smoke? Free-for-all frontier imaginations encourage illegal deforestation and appropriation of public lands in the Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Land Use Science, 15(2–3), 424–438. https://doi.org/10.1080/1747423X.2020.1739765
• Klingler, M., & Mack, P. (2020). Novo Progresso: A persistência do mito da terra livre na (pós)fronteira. In M. Coy, J. C. Barrozo, & E. A. de Souza (Eds.), Estratégias de Expansão do Agronegócio em Mato Grosso. Os eixos da BR-163 e da BR-158 em perspectiva comparativa (pp. 109–136). Retrieved from https://editora.iabs.org.br/site/?ddownload=15343