It’s quiet in the forest. It has been snowing for days, heavy snow keeps pressing the branches of the trees down and covering nature, everything seems to be in hibernation. In the spring and summer it was louder in the Forst Kasten. Activists had built tree houses in the forest near Neuried to protest against the planned gravel mining on an area of 9.5 hectares, Würmtal environmental protection initiatives had organized a vigil in the forest and demonstrated in Munich to prevent the project. Now it seems to have fallen silent on the subject. But the impression is deceptive.
The 800 hectares of the Kasten forest belong to the Heiliggeistspital Foundation, which is administered by the Mayor of Munich and the city council. It is a forest in a protected landscape area. Large areas of gravel have been mined there for decades. In the regional plan, the area was designated as a priority area for gravel mining many years ago. The foundation recently tendered an additional area of almost ten hectares for leasing for gravel mining; the contract was awarded to the Huber Brothers Bodenrecycling GmbH in Neuried. The members of the social committee in the Munich city council had partially grudgingly agreed to this award – they didn’t really have a choice. Because the forest area was designated as an economic use for foundation purposes in the Middle Ages. The city council could not oppose this.
On Thursday, December 16, the environmental associations will provide information at an online event
To date, the Munich District Office has not yet received an application for a permit to mine gravel in the forest of Kasten. When that could happen is open. The Huber Brothers company said it was a “pending procedure” about which no information could be given, says managing director Klaus Zernikow on request.
In the meantime, environmental initiatives such as “Rettet den Würmtaler Wald” and the “Grünzug-Netzwerk Würmtal” have developed a strategy. If an application is received and the district office approves the gravel mining, one wants to go to court and sue the project, says Herbert Stepp from the green corridor network. This is happening in close collaboration with the Bund Naturschutz, which is entitled to sue. Christian Hierneis, member of the state parliament of the Greens and chairman of the Federal Nature Conservation (BN) district group in Munich, confirms this: “I stand by that.” On Thursday, December 16, the environmental associations will report on the current status of the topic in an online information event at 7 p.m. (dial-in data at www.gruenzugnetzwerk.de).
The environmental initiatives are “in good spirits” when it comes to success in court, should it come to that. “I don’t think the gravel will come about,” says Stepp. He draws his confidence from a legal statement. Together with the other environmental initiatives, the green corridor network has succeeded in winning the renowned climate attorney Roda Verheyen from the Günther law firm in Hamburg, who worked on the case together with her colleague André Horenburg.
Verheyen has already led a number of climate trials. Most recently, it caused a stir because, in conjunction with other lawyers, it reached an important judgment in the so-called climate action before the Federal Constitutional Court in March. In short, it says that government activities to reduce CO₂ emissions are insufficient and more must be done to protect future generations. The state is therefore obliged to implement climate protection measures, simply allowing climate change is illegal. Exactly this judgment could now be an aspect to prevent gravel mining in Forst Kasten.
In June, police cleared the protest camp that opponents of deforestation and gravel had set up in the forest.
(Photo: Lennart Preiss / dpa)
The two lawyers examined the project in the forest box and wrote a 24-page statement, which can be viewed on the homepage of the green corridor network. Above all, the duo of lawyers worked out the importance of the forest, says Horenburg, who will be represented at the online information event. The paper shows that the forest box at the gates of Munich has an important climate protection function. The climate function map for Munich clearly shows that the forest has an important cooling function in order to protect the city from heat in the summer and thus also the city dwellers, explains Horenburg.
Cold air ducts, fanned by the wind from the southwest, deliver cold air for the city. In a city like Munich, which is “the most sealed city in Germany”, this is crucial, according to Horenburg. He recalls that the Kasten forest is a corporate forest that should be managed in a particularly exemplary manner. The conclusion: If clearing is permitted in Forst Kasten, then it is like a license to be able to clear forests everywhere. For Christian Hierneis from the Nature Conservation Association, it is clear from the statement that reforestation after gravel mining is not enough to protect the climate. A forest needs 70 to 100 years before it is “climate-effective”. “We have to leave the forest.”
Climate protection has recently played a bigger role in the weighing up
The clearing of a protected forest is always a matter of weighing up, says Horenburg. Thirty or even 40 years ago people thought differently, but now there is a shift towards climate protection. This change has not yet arrived in many authorities and administrations. According to Horenburg, the designation as a priority area for gravel mining in the regional plan does not change the reasoning. The lawyer considers this provision to be contradicting and therefore ineffective. Because in the same plan, the area is shown as a green corridor that is worth preserving.
The legal assessment of the importance of the priority area could give a project of the Neuried community a boost. According to Mayor Harald Zipfel (SPD), a “coherent line of argument” has been drawn up over the past few months as to why the priority area should be deleted from the regional plan. On March 8, the community will be heard at the planning association.
For the city of Munich, the topic of forest box is first of all ticked off. However, the commitment to lease should be the last. Because how the Forst Kasten is used economically is not expressly stated in the foundation statutes. There are already plans to erect some wind turbines there in the future. But nothing concrete is planned yet. Possibly there is also a lawsuit by a city council in the room to prevent the pebbles from being pebbled by the city. In particular, city councilors of the Greens, the ÖDP and the Left are eagerly awaiting whether the Munich District Office will even issue a permit.
So everything depends on the decision of the district office. For the time being, the authority sticks to its statement that there are “considerable doubts” about the permissibility of further gravel mining. Should new truck entrances become necessary to develop the mining area, this could affect other forest areas. That may not be compatible with the objectives of the landscape protection area. But it can take some time with such a decision, says Herbert Stepp. An approval process could take years, especially since no application has yet been submitted. But when the time comes, be ready, so Stepp. “We’re not giving up.”