Georg Ludwig Hartig

Hartig was born at Gladenbach, in present-day Hesse, to Friedrich Christian and Sophie Catherine née Venator.

[2] In 1786, Hartig was appointed as Manager of Forests for the Prince of Solms-Braunfels at Hungen, in the Wetterau, Hesse.

After a decade in Hungen, in 1797, he received an appointment as Inspector of Forests to the Prince of Orange-Nassau, to succeed the position of Friedrich Ludwig von Witzleben, and moved to Dillenburg, continuing his school of forestry there.

[2] Hartig recognized ecological interactions as being important in forest conservation and wrote about matters such as soil variations, plant sociology, and the damage caused by leaf litter removal.

In his 1791 work on the taxation of forests he defined sustainability as being possible only if “future generations derive at least as many benefits from it as the current generation.”[3] Hartig married Theodora in 1787.