Steigerwald: conservationists announce resistance to wind power – Bavaria

The chairman of the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV), Norbert Schäffer, warns against trying to prevent a national park in the Steigerwald by building wind turbines. “We are an environmental association and clearly in favor of wind power,” said Schäffer. “But anyone who thinks they can set up wind turbines in ecologically valuable forests or even in the area of ​​a potential national park will meet our strongest opposition.” From Schäffer’s point of view, there is enough space for wind turbines outside of the forests in Bavaria. To do this, the state government and the regional planning associations would only have to designate the corresponding priority areas. “You can’t play off wind power and a national park against each other,” says Schäffer.

The reason for the warning is a visit by Economics and Energy Minister Hubert Aiwanger and Environment Minister Thorsten Faithr (both FW) in the Steigerwald. The ministers informed themselves there about the wind power plans of the Geiselwind market, the city of Iphofen and the district of Kitzingen. Aiwanger advocated opening nature parks and landscape protection areas for wind farms. “Geiselwind was always ahead of its time and wanted to build wind turbines as early as 2011,” said Aiwanger. “But the plans failed due to the hurdles of the 10-hour distance rule, the nature park and the landscape protection area in the region.”

According to Aiwanger, the economics and environment ministries will now approach the district governments, the six Steigerwald districts and the municipalities there. “At a round table, we will develop plans on how wind turbines can be built here by communities that want them,” said Aiwanger. The plans should be transferrable to other regions. 20 wind turbines could be erected in the Geiselwind area alone. That’s what Ernst Nickel, the mayor of the 2500-inhabitant town, which is on the A3 and which has a certain national reputation because of its amusement park, said to the BR.

The no to the national park is in the coalition agreement

Aiwanger’s words immediately drew Schäffer into action. The LBV, the Bund Naturschutz (Bund Naturschutz) and many other environmental organizations, as well as the Greens, the SPD and more recently the FDP in the state parliament, are vehemently in favor of a national park in the Steigerwald. Because in the quiet ridge in the Drei-Franken-Eck there are ancient and ecologically valuable beech forests that are hard to find anywhere else in Europe. The Waldhaus natural forest reserve near the monastery town of Ebrach, for example, is mentioned in the same breath as the famous primeval beech forests in the Ukraine.

However, the CSU and FW vehemently block the designation of a national park. Both parties have even recorded their no in their coalition agreement. Many CSU and FW politicians, like the anti-national park association “Unser Steigerwald”, are convinced that a national park would only bring disadvantages and restrictions to the local population. Conservationists now think it is possible that one or the other national park opponents would tolerate more wind turbines in the region if the protected area could be prevented once and for all. A national park and at the same time many wind turbines in the Steigerwald exclude each other.

In the meantime, the demand for the national park is being put forward more offensively than in previous years. A summer festival for the protected area recently took place in Bamberg. “It was a great success,” says Schäffer. Schäffer was particularly pleased about the commitment of the alpinist Alexander Huber to a national park in the Steigerwald. Huber is one of the two world-famous Huber boys who have set countless climbing records. And he is a self-confessed conservationist. At the National Park Festival, Alexander Huber said: “If we don’t even manage to create a Steigerwald National Park in Bavaria, we can’t expect Brazil to protect its forests.”

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