Out on the Dachssee, Bavaria is how Markus Söder prefers to draw his country. Wind turbines are turning behind him, the lake and the moorland are peaceful in front of him. “It smells good, too,” says the prime minister. This is what it could look like, the “climate country number one” that Söder (CSU) likes to talk about. But now the district administrator is talking about the Moorallianz in Allgäu, this model project. “Unique in Bavaria,” says Maria Rita Zinnecker (CSU). Which would not only describe the ideal. But also the problem.
Peat soils are important carbon stores. But in Bavaria they are pretty battered. According to the Bund Naturschutz (BN), 95 percent of the moors in Bavaria are no longer in what is known as underwater saturation. As soon as the peat soil is no longer under water, it reacts with oxygen, decomposes – and the carbon escapes. To put this in context: Eight percent of Bavaria’s CO₂ equivalent emissions come from broken moors. Their protection for the climate is correspondingly important. The moors are among the “most underestimated CO₂ stores ever,” says Söder am Dachssee. His critics say: The state government has underestimated the moors themselves for too long.
These are the basic conditions of this little trip, which takes Markus Söder first to the lake – and then to the meeting of his cabinet, which is meeting in Kaufbeuren this Tuesday, in the “Green Center”. There was a phase when Söder talked about little else than green issues, about climate protection. But the prime minister has been hinting for some time that his priorities have shifted somewhat. At the CSU party conference in May, he said: “The prosperity ice is melting faster than the ice on the glaciers.” In the Ostallgäu, Söder is once again focusing on climate protection.
In the Allgäuer Moorallianz, the districts of East and Oberallgäu cooperate with numerous municipalities and nature conservation associations for the preservation and renaturation of the moors in the foothills of the Alps between Lech and Iller. Its beginnings go back to 2007, since then Allianz has been doing its best. The Seemoos near Oy-Mittelberg, for example, used to be drained by a network of ditches with a total length of twelve kilometers. In the meantime, the ditches have been closed every 20 meters so that the water stays in the moor again. Today, the Seemoos is not only a valuable CO₂ reservoir, but also a habitat for rare butterflies such as the raised bog moth, but also for adders and emerald dragonflies. And it is an attractive hiking destination for holidaymakers and day visitors.
Across Bavaria, 55,000 hectares of moors are to be renatured by 2040, Söder confirmed on Tuesday. The Free State wants to spend a lot of money on this. In the future, he wants to reimburse landowners 100 percent for the costs of rewetting. However, Söder’s announcements are ambitious. The previous subsidy rates for moor protection are already rather generous at 75 to 95 percent. However, progress is very slow. According to Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber (free voters), 2,300 hectares of moors have been rewetted throughout Bavaria in the current election period – with a total of around 220,000 hectares of moorland. If the renaturation does not pick up speed rapidly, the Free State will miss the 55,000-hectare target by 2040 with a bang. It was the Bavarian Supreme Court of Auditors who wrote Söder in the register in autumn 2021 that arithmetically 2750 hectares of moorland would have to be renatured for this goal – per year.
The environmental associations react skeptically to Söder’s announcement. Of course, they share the conviction “that the renaturation of Bavaria’s moors is highly effective climate and species protection,” as the chairman of the state association for bird protection, Norbert Schäffer, announced after the cabinet meeting. But he now lacks the confidence that the state government will follow up on its announcements with the appropriate actions. Schäffer well remembers Söder’s performance two years ago in the Donaumoos in the south-west of Ingolstadt. The Prime Minister announced the largest bog renaturation project that has ever existed in Bavaria. Within ten years, Söder promised, 2,000 hectares of what was once the largest fen would be rewetted. The Free State wanted to pump 200 million euros into the project, 20 million euros per year. The LBV was enthusiastic at the time.
“Farming land must remain in the hands of farmers”
In the meantime, disillusionment reigns. The reason: Apart from preparatory work, nothing has happened in the Donaumoos in the past two years, as Environment Minister Thorsten Faithr had to admit at the cabinet press conference. LBV boss Schäffer is certainly not one of the agitators in the nature conservation scene. But even he is getting impatient now. “We finally need a renaturation turbo for our moors,” he demands. After all, since Söder’s announcements in the Donaumoos, another million tons of CO₂ have entered the atmosphere due to further overexploitation. The main reason is agriculture. The farmers mainly grow potatoes and corn on the drained moorland. As a result, the peat layer of the Donaumoose, which with an area of 17,000 hectares was once the most important fen in southern Germany, is being destroyed more and more and the CO₂ stored in it is being released.
Nevertheless, most farmers are skeptical about protecting the remaining moors. “Farming land must remain in the hands of farmers,” said Stefan Koehler, Vice President of the Bavarian Farmers’ Association on Tuesday. When it comes to protecting the moors, “decisions should not be made over the heads of the farming families and the local people, blanket bans on agricultural use must be taboo”. The central demands of the farmers’ association: “Voluntariness, reliability and state transfer payments based on the principle of public money for public services.”
So the farmers should like what Söder am Dachssee says. He doesn’t want moor protection “with a crowbar”, but “hand in hand with the population, municipalities and agriculture”. In the Allgäu it shows that it is also possible without “bans”. “Voluntariness before regulatory law,” says Minister of Agriculture Michaela Kaniber (CSU), who is at the Seetermin. The problem with being voluntary: it takes time. Söder put it more positively on Tuesday: In the Allgäu you can see that there are “long ways” in moor protection, “but good ways”.