The aurochs are coming back

Press release on the annu­al press con­fer­ence of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Friends of the Ger­­man-Pol­ish Euro­pean Nation­al Park Unteres Oder­tal e. V. 

on Wednes­day Jan­u­ary 13th, 2010

 

At the annu­al press con­fer­ence of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Friends of the Ger­­man-Pol­ish Euro­pean Nation­al Park Unteres Oder­tal e. V. (Asso­ci­a­tion) on Jan­u­ary 13, 2010, the chair­man of the asso­ci­a­tion, Thomas Berg, stat­ed, among oth­er things:

1. “Togeth­er with the Chi­nese we cel­e­brat­ed 2009 as the year of the buf­fa­lo. As a result of our work, there are 35 water buf­fa­los in the Friedrich­sthaler Pold­er (5/6) in win­ter and in the Fid­di­chow­er Pold­er (10) in sum­mer, most of them pri­vate­ly acquired by a Gartzer farmer. The Euro­pean water buf­fa­lo is a live­stock that is adapt­ed to moist biotopes and is also fond of reeds, rush­es and sedges, is hardy and, with good care, tame. We see the water buf­fa­lo as an ide­al con­nec­tion between agri­cul­ture and nature con­ser­va­tion, and the buf­fa­lo is also a tourist attrac­tion. The water buf­fa­lo is both a farm cat­tle and a land­scape con­ser­va­tion­ist. We strong­ly sup­port the ini­tia­tive of a pri­vate farmer and hope for imitators.

2. The year 2010 is now the year of the aurochs or its back­cross­ing, the tail cat­tle, because what has been exter­mi­nat­ed will not actu­al­ly come back. The back­bred aurochs, quite impos­ing horn­bears, which are a bit small­er than the orig­i­nal, are sup­posed to con­vert a pre­vi­ous­ly rather monot­o­nous agri­cul­tur­al land­scape into a semi-open, var­ied pas­ture land­scape in the Lunow-Stolper dry pold­er. The asso­ci­a­tion thus com­bines eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal aspects. The ani­mals are easy to mar­ket, are a tourist attrac­tion and, with a thin stock­ing den­si­ty, enable a nat­ur­al floris­tic and fau­nis­tic devel­op­ment of the landscape.

3. A full shot in the oven, how­ev­er, was the pre­lim­i­nary brief­ing of the asso­ci­a­tion in total reserves, announced by Mr. Tre­ichel in the sum­mer of 2009, espe­cial­ly in the so-called Gatow­er wet­lands (approx. 80 hectares). The respon­si­ble office for land con­sol­i­da­tion (LVLF) has made it clear that such an approach is legal­ly unten­able. Now, as can be heard from the LVLF, the head of admin­is­tra­tion is urg­ing the asso­ci­a­tion to be com­plete­ly incor­po­rat­ed into the Fid­di­chow­er Pold­er (10) with a size of around 1,773 hectares. This also con­tra­dicts the spir­it and the let­ter of the order res­o­lu­tion from the year 2000 for land reor­ga­ni­za­tion by the same min­istry. A lot of time, mon­ey and ener­gy is wast­ed here. Against the resis­tance of the asso­ci­a­tion, the com­pa­ny floor reor­ga­ni­za­tion process will not be able to be suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed, because in Bran­den­burg too, deci­sions must ulti­mate­ly be made accord­ing to the law. The administration’s con­fronta­tion­al course will lead nowhere. We are by no means hap­py about this, but are main­tain­ing our com­pro­mise offer.

4. It is impor­tant, how­ev­er, that despite these polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed but ulti­mate­ly non­sen­si­cal quar­rels, the good coöper­a­tion between the asso­ci­a­tion and the admin­is­tra­tion on some prac­ti­cal ques­tions of nature con­ser­va­tion could be con­tin­ued, for exam­ple in the main­te­nance of dry lawns or the cre­ation of hedges and trees in pre­vi­ous­ly monot­o­nous fields. This coöper­a­tion should be con­tin­ued and expanded.

5. This will not rule out one or the oth­er dis­pute on the mat­ter, for exam­ple because of the traf­fic safe­ty oblig­a­tions: On offi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed hik­ing trails, the landown­er must ensure that vis­i­tors are not harmed through gross neg­li­gence, for exam­ple through falling branch­es or trees. There­fore, dead wood stand­ing to the right and left of the path has to be laid flat, even if this is regret­table from an eco­log­i­cal point of view and con­tra­dicts the idea of a total reserve. The asso­ci­a­tion has there­fore always insist­ed that no more offi­cial hik­ing trails than nec­es­sary through the area, espe­cial­ly through the total reserves. We would like to leave as much dead wood as pos­si­ble in the total reserve, but we can­not accept respon­si­bil­i­ty for any dam­age to the nation­al park guests. There­fore, if the admin­is­tra­tion wants to lead hik­ing trails through total reserves, it must take on the duty to main­tain safe­ty itself or release the landown­er from lia­bil­i­ty claims. In addi­tion, the expens­es for the traf­fic safe­ty oblig­a­tion are not insignif­i­cant and are to be borne by the landown­er in addi­tion to the fees for the water and soil asso­ci­a­tions. It is obvi­ous that this can­not be per­ma­nent. This will have to be debat­ed this year.

6. Sev­er­al suc­cess­ful projects from the last few years will be con­tin­ued in 2010 as well. The Nation­al Park Year­book Unteres Oder­tal has become the most impor­tant medi­um and forum for the spe­cial­ist pub­lic inter­est­ed in the Inter­na­tion­al Park Unteres Oder­tal. It will now appear in 2010, prob­a­bly in Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary. The excur­sion pro­gram with experts from our part­ner orga­ni­za­tions, which is very well received and a won­der­ful sign of civic com­mit­ment, will also be con­tin­ued this year. The cor­re­spond­ing leaflet will appear in March of this year ”.

Thomas Berg
CEO