Annu­al press con­fer­ence on Jan­u­ary 12, 2005

 

In 2004, too, the asso­ci­a­tion was able to car­ry out its tasks calm­ly and objec­tive­ly. The one in the last
In the 19th cen­tu­ry, the dis­pute between local farm­ers and our asso­ci­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly exter­nal­ly fueled, is a thing of the past.

The clash­es, which were very loud and shrill dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, con­cerned hunt­ing, the fish­ing reg­u­la­tions, the des­ig­na­tion of total reserves and the amend­ment of the Nation­al Park Act, all top­ics that do not fall with­in the area of respon­si­bil­i­ty of the asso­ci­a­tion, but of the nation­al park admin­is­tra­tion and the Min­istry of Agriculture.

1. Good pop­u­la­tion devel­op­ment in rare ani­mals, espe­cial­ly birds

The head of the nation­al park admin­is­tra­tion is pub­licly pleased about “a slow trans­for­ma­tion of the veg­e­ta­tion in the areas of the nation­al park that are not influ­enced by humans”. The pop­u­la­tion of some rare birds has devel­oped very pos­i­tive­ly. How­ev­er, the head of admin­is­tra­tion does not men­tion that this pos­i­tive devel­op­ment takes place almost exclu­sive­ly on the areas of the devel­op­ment asso­ci­a­tion, not on the land areas. They are man­aged today as they were in the past, the nature con­ser­va­tion require­ments of the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan are only enforced on the club’s premis­es. This is where nature can devel­op. In con­trast, the state’s con­trac­tu­al nature con­ser­va­tion resources have also fall­en dras­ti­cal­ly in the Low­er Oder Val­ley in recent years. We are also hap­py about the pos­i­tive devel­op­ment in the fields and fields, but we also open­ly state the caus­es. They lie exclu­sive­ly in the prop­er­ty of the asso­ci­a­tion and in the con­sis­tent imple­men­ta­tion of the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan on this.

2. Ger­­man-Pol­ish encounter

In 2004, the asso­ci­a­tion delib­er­ate­ly placed a clear empha­sis on Ger­­man-Pol­ish coöper­a­tion, in the year Poland joined the Euro­pean Union. For exam­ple, on Jan­u­ary 13, 2004, we offered a press con­fer­ence in Pol­ish for Pol­ish jour­nal­ists, which was very well received. At the invi­ta­tion of the respon­si­ble dis­trict admin­is­tra­tor, we attend­ed a Ger­­man-Pol­ish event in Greifen­hagen (Gryfi­no) on April 24th, 2004 and held the fol­low-up event on Novem­ber 26th, 2004 in Criewen with 30 par­tic­i­pants. Here, infor­ma­tion was giv­en in par­tic­u­lar about the pro­tec­tion and use con­cept of the nation­al park on the Ger­man side. The farm­ers, fish­er­men, hunters, anglers on the Pol­ish side affect­ed by the Inter­na­tion­al Park were invit­ed, as well as trades­peo­ple, innkeep­ers and innkeep­ers. On June 25th, 2004, we invit­ed the Pol­ish may­ors of the munic­i­pal­i­ties near the nation­al park to get to know each oth­er and exchange infor­ma­tion at Criewen Castle.

3. Envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion, research fund­ing and pub­lic relations

Since the envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion of the Inter­na­tion­al­park Unteres Oder­tal gGmbH is main­ly car­ried out in the wilder­ness school and the sci­ence is based in the Bran­den­burg Acad­e­my of Criewen Cas­tle, pub­lic rela­tions in the media remained the core task of the association’s board. The already proven excur­sion pro­gram with experts from the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty was again suc­cess­ful this year
Part­ner orga­ni­za­tions offer, on a vol­un­tary basis and free of charge, high­ly qual­i­fied but eas­i­ly under­stand­able tours on spe­cial top­ics in the Low­er Oder Val­ley. The events were well attend­ed again, with 193 vis­i­tors tak­ing part. The pro­gram will be con­tin­ued in 2005 and expand­ed again.

4. Land acqui­si­tion and exchange of land

The asso­ci­a­tion con­tin­ued the vol­un­tary acqui­si­tion of land in 2004 and acquired approx. 28 hectares (as of Decem­ber 31, 2004). We con­tin­ue to rely on vol­un­tary land acqui­si­tion and reject all coer­cive and expro­pri­a­tion mea­sures against the will of those affect­ed as part of the com­pa­ny land con­sol­i­da­tion pro­ce­dure. Funds are also avail­able for the vol­un­tary acqui­si­tion of land in 2005, espe­cial­ly in the core area of the major nature con­ser­va­tion project. Prospec­tive sales­peo­ple are welcome.

The exchange of space is to be inten­si­fied in 2005. Although it is actu­al­ly reserved for the com­pa­ny land con­sol­i­da­tion pro­ce­dure, in indi­vid­ual cas­es spe­cial exchange requests can be tak­en into account in advance, espe­cial­ly if a com­pre­hen­sive, final oper­at­ing con­cept is achieved with it. The asso­ci­a­tion endeav­ors to find an oper­at­ing con­cept in a direct dia­logue with each indi­vid­ual company
secures its liveli­hood for the com­pa­ny in the long term and still ful­ly takes into account the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan.

5. Land­scape maintenance

Year-round graz­ing with exten­sive cat­tle, horse and sheep breeds offers an oppor­tu­ni­ty for this. Wild ani­mals such as bison and Przewalski’s horse as well as bred ones such as Heck cat­tle, Tau­rus cat­tle or Tarpan, but also Scud­den and the rough-wooly Pomeran­ian sheep are suit­able for this. While the sheep are par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­able for the dry grass slopes, there is space for cat­tle and hors­es in Pold­er 5/6 and in Lunow / Stolper Pold­er. This year we will try to work togeth­er with the farm­ers in coöper­a­tion with the State Envi­ron­ment Agency
and the MLUV to come to rea­son­able results.

Even in the 13th year of its exis­tence, the asso­ci­a­tion has a secure finan­cial and admin­is­tra­tive foun­da­tion and remains deter­mined to con­tin­ue to do jus­tice to its tasks, which arise in par­tic­u­lar from the major nature con­ser­va­tion project of nation­wide rep­re­sen­ta­tive impor­tance for the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Germany.