The clearing of almost ten hectares of forest in the Kasten forest can no longer be stopped. However, the approximately 800 hectare forest area, which belongs to the Munich Heiliggeistspital Foundation, could no longer only be used for gravel mining in the future. The social committee in the city council and the social department have signaled that wind turbines could possibly even be built in the middle of the forest.
The idea was made public on Thursday, Green City Councilor Bernd Schreyer. Investigations are currently underway to determine whether one or even several rotors are possible in the Munich foundation forest between Neuried and the Würmtal. The Munich engineering office Beermann Energiesysteme GmbH, which also built the wind power plant in Fröttmaning, is said to have already been involved by the Association Grünzug-Netzwerk Würmtal, said Schreyer. This was not voted on in the meeting of the social committee, but the social department signaled goodwill for the idea.
The same applies to the so-called climate camps in Forst Kasten. In the spring, environmental activists demonstrated for weeks in the forest against the deforestation of thousands of trees in favor of gravel extraction. Some of them were ultimately taken from occupied trees by the police, and demonstrators had reported police violence. There are now indications that climate activists, taking into account the right of assembly, could in future quite legally organize climate camps in the Forst Kasten.
A company from Neuried has been awarded the contract to cut thousands of trees in the middle of what is actually a protected forest in order to dig tons of gravel from the subsoil. The Munich city council approved this in principle in 2014 and 2017. The Munich Heiliggeistspital Foundation has had the right to use the Forst Kasten economically for around eight hundred years in order to preserve the foundation’s assets.
Now, however, it is precisely these foundation statutes that could be shaken. Because after the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court in the spring, according to which climate protection must be incorporated into laws and ordinances much more strongly than before, the purpose of the foundation could in future not serve forest use in the traditional sense, but also climate protection. With wind turbines, for example. A decision on this is still pending.