Companies now use GPS trackers to prevent wood theft in Germany

BERLIN (AA) - German forest companies have started to use GPS trackers to prevent wood theft as the energy crisis is deepening in the country.

According to the local media reports, many companies are facing growing number of timber thefts and seeking ways to counter them with new measures.

“Unfortunately, rising energy prices are increasingly tempting people to steal firewood,” forest company ForstBW’s chief executive Max Reger told Forstpraxis magazine.

“The wood is not only illegally transported away with car trailers, but sometimes also with entire truckloads,” he said.

“We rely on modern methods to track down the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” he added.

The GPS trackers used by the company is allowing the employees to check the position of the wood at any time.

If the logs are found to be moving, the police can be called in directly. Using the GPS data, it is possible to determine directly which path the logs have taken and where they are at any given time.

Reger said that as GPS trackers are very small devices, the employees of the company can easily hide them even in firewood, which often consists of much weaker log parts than construction timber.

"We want to provide people with affordable firewood from local forests and thus help reduce dependence on fossil fuels,” he said, but also added that they can only achieve this, if they can prevent thefts and illegal selling.