Voters in Passau will decide on a blanket ban on clearing in their city on Sunday. The reason is the designation of a commercial area in the Patriching district. For this purpose, the so-called hunter’s wood should be cleared. An alliance of numerous organizations and parties – including the Federation for Nature Conservation, the Greens, the ÖDP and several foresters – has launched the citizens’ initiative “Save the Passau Forests”. The initiative wants to ensure that there is no longer any clearing of forests for new commercial areas in Passau. “Forest is important for groundwater and heat protection. It is an important ally against the climate crisis and species extinction,” says Passau ÖDP politician Urban Mangold. In addition, there is no need to clear forests. There are enough forest-free areas in Passau that can be developed.
By mid-July, more than 7,000 Passau citizens had supported the citizens’ initiative with their signatures. Of these, 6,049 were considered valid. The city council then checked the admissibility of the initiative and set September 17th as the day of the referendum. In addition, he decided on a “council request for sustainable urban development”. The city wants to ensure that forests can continue to be used for construction projects in the future. The city says that reforestation will be carried out in other places. The replacement areas for Jägerholz, for example, are planned in Schalding on the left of the Danube.
The city did not respond directly to SZ’s questions, but instead referred to its website. In its council request, the city also cites the Passau climate protection concept. The goal of no longer clearing forests is mentioned under the keyword “biotope network system”. But this measure has only a comparatively low priority there. The citizens’ initiative is fundamentally critical of replacement plantings for the planned deforestation, especially since they are required by law anyway. She argues that it would take years for the new forest to have the same ecological benefits as the existing one.
There will be two votes in Passau on Sunday. Voters can mark which position they support and which they reject. There is also a key question: There, voters indicate which referendum they will vote for if both decisions are successful. If the citizens’ initiative prevails, the city will be bound to it for a year.
In Bavaria there are always heated disputes over commercial areas. In Weiden, a clear majority of the population approved the city’s corresponding plans in 2021. A full two-thirds of those who voted were in favor of preserving the forest on the city limits as a local recreation area. In Teublitz, Upper Palatinate, it was the Bavarian Administrative Court that rejected the city for a commercial area in a forest on the A 93. The city does not want to accept the ruling and has announced a new attempt for the commercial area. The Passau citizens’ initiative is of course the first in Bavaria that is not only directed against a specific project, but also wants to ban the city once and for all from cutting down forest for an industrial area.