Torsten Schäfer is a professor of journalism at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, an environmental journalist, and a wilderness pedagogist. His work focuses on climate journalism, storytelling, and nature writing. Torsten was editor at GEO magazine and the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. He took training in survival education (one year) and river relations (Schumacher College). He leads a fishing club to be able to represent his river Modau legally, about which he wrote his first nature writing book (“Wasserpfade”, 2021); the current book (“Die Wildnis in uns”, 2026) contains four trips to Scandinavia where Torsten investigates indigenous river narratives for the project “talking salmon” together with OsloMet University. From September 2026 on, they will offer an online course for relational storytelling and new narratives. Torsten also explores German river and wetland narratives, as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is one key discovery for telling new stories about climate adaptation and a good life in a cosmopolitan homeland. Torsten represents the river Modau for the local climate group “Klimainitiative Ober-Ramstadt” (KliO).
Confluence of European Water Bodies
