Money instead of compensation areas – that can be a sensible regulation – opinion

For many it sounded like buying their freedom from nature conservation, which the traffic light government said last week: Anyone who paves Germany’s nature no longer has to provide ecological compensation areas in the immediate vicinity to compensate, they can also simply make a “cash payment”, as the FDP does boss and finance minister Christian Lindner put it. It seemed as if he was proclaiming a total sell-out of green politics. But no matter how many feathers the Greens had to lose with the traffic light compromise, for example with a view to expanding the motorway: the planned new regulation for the compensation areas is actually ecologically valuable – if you implement it correctly.