Rapper Stress unveils his "Woodvetia" figure at Zurich Zoo

#Woodvetia, the joint campaign of the Federal Office for the Environment and the Swiss forestry and timber industry, aims to get the population excited about the sustainable raw material Swiss wood. The reason for the campaign is the declining demand for Swiss wood. This is having a negative impact on the forest and the local timber industry.

The core of #Woodvetia is formed by lifelike and life-size statues of well-known personalities from Swiss history and the present, which the Zurich artist Inigo Gheyselinck carves from Swiss wood. The wood he uses is always sourced from the regions from which the depicted personalities originate.

Stress in the monkey house of the zoo in Zurich

On Monday, July 10, 2017, Stress, Hans Rupli (President Holzbau Schweiz) and Robert Zingg (Senior Curator Zoo Zurich) presented the 13th #Woodvetia figure at Zurich Zoo. The zoo was chosen as the location because, like Stress, it is strongly committed to the preservation and protection of natural habitats. The musician is delighted with his #Woodvetia statue: "Of course I'm honored to have been carved in wood. I didn't want a tree to be cut down for me at first, until it was explained to me that timber harvesting is very important for a healthy forest. I hope our wooden statues can stand as a symbol of this and encourage people to buy more Swiss wood. In this way, we can all help to keep the Swiss forest healthy as a place of balance, a habitat for numerous animal and plant species, and also as an employer."

The wood used for the statue of Stress comes from a birch tree in Lausanne, where Stress lived and had his first successes as a musician. The birch is a small reference to the artist's original homeland, Estonia. There, the birch is the most common deciduous tree and is sung about in numerous traditional songs and stories.