Covering less than 1 square kilometre (0.39 sq mi), Vilm is the remnant of a moraine left as the glaciers retreated about 6000 years ago.

The chalky cliffs to the southern side of Great Vilm are rapidly eroding, while sandbanks are building to add a snail-like curl to the tail.

Slavic peoples built a temple there, and its use for spiritual purposes persisted into Christian times, when in the Middle Ages it became a place of pilgrimage.

In 1959 the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) closed the island to the public and constructed 11 guesthouses, administrative and farm buildings.

This is how it came to be that the island of Vilm and many other protected areas belonged for one logical second to Christian Patermann, then a high official in the Ministry of the Environment, now retired, but at one time a director in the European Commission.

The academy, which maintains and uses the GDR buildings as an ecological research station, is mandated to provide scientific support to the Federal Secretary of the Environment in matters concerning national and international nature conservation and landscape management, international cooperation, ecosystems, environmental monitoring and research in the Baltic Sea area, and the transfer of scientific method and knowledge.

Most of it is covered in forest that has been undisturbed for decades, and even centuries, with the result that its oak and beech woods are among the most untouched and impressive in Germany, and the island boasts a rich diversity of birds and small mammals.