Annual press conference January 12, 2012

In 2011 the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion also made a con­struc­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment of the nation­al park region. As part of the restruc­tur­ing of the com­pa­ny floor, the asso­ci­a­tion has put in its ideas on the date request­ed and expects an allo­ca­tion of space in accor­dance with the law. He sup­port­ed the elab­o­ra­tion of the nation­al park plan with a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment, pro­mot­ed the eval­u­a­tion of Europarc with his state­ment and, as a warn­ing and warn­ing, repeat­ed­ly made goal-ori­en­t­ed sug­ges­tions for the nation­al park devel­op­ment. Much that was not tak­en up direct­ly and imme­di­ate­ly was lat­er found indi­rect­ly as a sep­a­rate pro­pos­al by the admin­is­tra­tion. The asso­ci­a­tion has ful­filled its func­tion as a motor and motivator.

In order to be able to con­tin­ue to ful­fill its statu­to­ry tasks, also as the spon­sor of the large-scale nature con­ser­va­tion project, the asso­ci­a­tion will con­tin­ue to buy all suit­able areas in the region (fields, mead­ows, forests, water) in order to pur­chase them in the inter­ests of nature con­ser­va­tion and eco­log­i­cal agri­cul­ture to use. Our office reg­u­lates con­trac­tu­al mat­ters quick­ly, com­pe­tent­ly, silent­ly and at mar­ket prices. We look for­ward to fur­ther poten­tial sales. In 2011 the asso­ci­a­tion acquired around 10 hectares of land.

The asso­ci­a­tion has expand­ed its organ­ic farm­ing busi­ness and cur­rent­ly has 5 Konik hors­es and 19 Heck cat­tle on around 60 hectares of wild pas­ture in the Lunow-Stolper dry pold­er. The eco­nom­i­cal­ly active com­pa­ny should act as an exam­ple of the con­nec­tion between nature con­ser­va­tion and agri­cul­ture. The con­cept of the wild pas­ture serves to main­tain and increase bio­di­ver­si­ty and, with its pop­u­la­tion of rus­tic cat­tle and hors­es, is also a tourist attrac­tion. The com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue to grow organ­i­cal­ly. He does not want to pres­sure the estab­lished farms in his area, which are much larg­er, but nev­er­the­less stim­u­late new forms of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty. Against this back­ground, it is grat­i­fy­ing that the dis­putes at the time with a large agri­cul­tur­al com­pa­ny in the south have now been set­tled. The Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion is now work­ing prop­er­ly with all busi­ness­es, as it should be between good neighbors.

Three new boil­er wells and one bored well were com­plet­ed on the dry grass sites. This will make future graz­ing of the valu­able dry grass­lands much eas­i­er. The wells were planned togeth­er with the Nation­al Park Admin­is­tra­tion Unteres Oder­tal and fund­ed by the State Office for Rur­al Devel­op­ment, Agri­cul­ture and Land Man­age­ment (LELF) with 75% of the total costs. They are sched­uled to go into oper­a­tion in spring 2012.

And that brings us to the out­look for 2012:

The most impor­tant task of the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion is and remains nature con­ser­va­tion: the asso­ci­a­tion has con­trac­tu­al­ly nego­ti­at­ed the con­sent of prac­ti­cal­ly all farm­ers work­ing in the Fid­di­chow Pold­er (10) to accept near-nat­ur­al water lev­els in the pold­er. For this they were held harm­less else­where. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the admin­is­tra­tion has not yet made suf­fi­cient use of this oppor­tu­ni­ty and con­tin­ues to pump emp­ty the pold­er, albeit sig­nif­i­cant­ly lat­er than usu­al in 2011.

Last year, the asso­ci­a­tion suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing an agree­ment with sev­er­al large farms that they should use their land in the nation­al park as exten­sive­ly as pos­si­ble, i.e. reduce near-nat­ur­al graz­ing as far as EU agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies allow. Nego­ti­a­tions are tak­ing place with oth­er com­pa­nies in this regard. As a result, nature con­ser­va­tion in the Low­er Oder Val­ley is mak­ing a big leap for­ward, regard­less of the ongo­ing restruc­tur­ing of the com­pa­ny land and the des­ig­na­tion of total reserves, for which we have not yet seen any results. We want to reduce the use of the largest pos­si­ble area as much as pos­si­ble, but still give farm­ers EU agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies  enable and thus com­bine agri­cul­ture and nature con­ser­va­tion, and even rec­on­cile them to a cer­tain extent.

The acqui­si­tion of land con­tin­ues, the agri­cul­tur­al oper­a­tion is organ­i­cal­ly expand­ed, the excur­sion pro­gram will be con­tin­ued togeth­er with the Nation­al Park Foun­da­tion. For Sat­ur­day, April 28th, 2012 the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion is plan­ning an open day in the Teero­fen­brücke Wilder­ness School togeth­er with the Nation­al Park Foun­da­tion and the Inter­na­tion­al­park Unteres Oder­tal GmbH. On this day, not only will the pos­si­bil­i­ties and rooms of the wilder­ness school and nation­al park lab­o­ra­to­ry be pre­sent­ed, but sci­en­tists from our part­ner orga­ni­za­tions will also come to present their meth­ods and results to a broad pub­lic in the lab­o­ra­to­ry, but also on field excur­sions, in a tech­ni­cal­ly demand­ing but gen­er­al­ly under­stand­able man­ner. In coöper­a­tion with oth­er providers from the region, this open day should, accord­ing to our plans, have a folk fes­­ti­­val-like char­ac­ter, infor­ma­tive and edu­ca­tion­al, but also cheer­ful and relaxed. The exact pro­gram will be announced in good time.

We hope that in the year that has just begun, we will not have to deal with legal dis­putes any fur­ther. It is not the worst thing to get jus­tice against the respon­si­ble Bran­den­burg min­istries in court, but we would pre­fer to use our ener­gies in fields in which humans and nature ben­e­fit direct­ly. The fact that all rea­son­able argu­ments, as well as law and order, are on our side moti­vates us to make fur­ther efforts.

The board of directors