In the MOZ (Jan­u­ary 4/5, 2014), Mr Diet­rich tried to resolve the cur­rent­ly pend­ing dis­putes between the Asso­ci­a­tion of Friends of the Ger­­man-Pol­ish Euro­pean Nation­al Park Unteres Oder­tal e. V. (Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion) and the State of Bran­den­burg to list and present. He has not spo­ken to the club before­hand. Its pre­sen­ta­tion is there­fore short­ened, not under­stand­able and also not cor­rect. The three points of con­tention are sum­ma­rized here again for a more rel­e­vant pre­sen­ta­tion. In addi­tion, the Nation­al Park Association’s review of 2013 and the out­look for 2014 can be found in the 2013 Low­er Oder Val­ley Nation­al Park Yearbook. 

1. Com­pa­ny floor reorganization

The focus of 2013 for the Low­er Oder Val­ley was the reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the com­pa­ny floor that was ordered 13 years ago. After lit­tle had hap­pened for many years, every­thing should now hap­pen very quick­ly. This has cre­at­ed quite a mess for prop­er­ty own­ers and users. Nev­er­the­less, on June 11, 2013 the State Office for Rur­al Devel­op­ment, Agri­cul­ture and Land Reor­ga­ni­za­tion (LELF) ordered the pro­vi­sion­al prop­er­ty brief­ing. As the name sug­gests, it is pre­lim­i­nary and not final. Like many oth­ers, the asso­ci­a­tion had lodged an objec­tion and applied for inter­im legal pro­tec­tion pro­ceed­ings to restore the sus­pen­sive effect of its objection.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the asso­ci­a­tion was unable to pre­vail in the inter­im legal pro­tec­tion pro­ceed­ings before the High­er Admin­is­tra­tive Court in Berlin-Bran­­den­burg. The High­er Admin­is­tra­tive Court was of the opin­ion that the asso­ci­a­tion could be expect­ed to wait for the main pro­ceed­ings and until then to accept the pro­vi­sion­al assign­ment of pos­ses­sion. The asso­ci­a­tion has a dif­fer­ent legal opin­ion and will pur­sue the objec­tion and exhaust the legal process.
The asso­ci­a­tion has always made it clear that it con­sid­ers land reor­ga­ni­za­tion in the Low­er Oder Val­ley to be nec­es­sary. How­ev­er, he has always giv­en pref­er­ence to an accel­er­at­ed pro­ce­dure accord­ing to § 91 Land Con­sol­i­da­tion Act (Flur­bG) over the cor­po­rate land con­sol­i­da­tion accord­ing to § 87 Flur­bG, because he relies on the prin­ci­ple of vol­un­tari­ness and rejects expro­pri­a­tions. But the state of Bran­den­burg has decid­ed in favor of cor­po­rate land con­sol­i­da­tion. This can also be used to orga­nize the areas in the Low­er Oder Valley.

How­ev­er, it is not accept­able for the state of Bran­den­burg to take over pre­dom­i­nant­ly Zone II areas with this cor­po­rate land con­sol­i­da­tion and to allo­cate pre­dom­i­nant­ly Zone I areas (total reserves) to the pri­vate nation­al park asso­ci­a­tion, which cause run­ning costs, but none Enable more income. In all Ger­man nation­al parks, total reserves are owned by the state, only in the Low­er Oder Val­ley should they be pre­dom­i­nant­ly assigned to a pri­vate asso­ci­a­tion. We con­sid­er that to be illegal.

2. Fund­ing recovery

We also con­sid­er it prob­lem­at­ic if the state of Bran­den­burg does not exchange exchange areas, which the asso­ci­a­tion had acquired with finan­cial sup­port and the express con­sent of the state in the pre­vi­ous mil­len­ni­um, in the core area as part of the land reor­ga­ni­za­tion and instead demands the fund­ing back. With the arrange­ment of the land reor­ga­ni­za­tion, the state itself has tak­en respon­si­bil­i­ty for the exchange of space, and the association’s attempts to exchange the land were hin­dered or even pre­vent­ed by the respon­si­ble state office. The asso­ci­a­tion has always insist­ed that these areas be exchanged for the core area. The club can­not be reproached for not hav­ing exchanged it so far. In the opin­ion of the asso­ci­a­tion, the funds raised by the asso­ci­a­tion 20 years ago should not be repaid. If the judg­ments of the com­pe­tent courts are dif­fer­ent, the asso­ci­a­tion will of course pay back the funds.

3. Proof of final use 

In the years 1992–2000, like all agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness­es, the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion received sub­si­dies and used them appro­pri­ate­ly. Like all grant recip­i­ents in Bran­den­burg, he has kept a proof of use for each fund­ing noti­fi­ca­tion, which has been checked by the State of Bran­den­burg in a com­plex process and express­ly con­firmed as cor­rect. So far, no one has raised the charge that the asso­ci­a­tion has not cor­rect­ly used or billed its funds. Such alle­ga­tions would also be untenable.

Many years lat­er, how­ev­er, the respon­si­ble Bran­den­burg min­istry want­ed a final report for the entire project in addi­tion to the annu­al proof of use. In prin­ci­ple, the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion was ready for this. How­ev­er, the ministry’s demands were so detailed and frag­ment­ed that 20 years lat­er the asso­ci­a­tion was no longer able to pro­vide the required infor­ma­tion with the best will in the world. The only way for the club was to take legal action. The admin­is­tra­tive court in Pots­dam sup­port­ed the legal posi­tion of the asso­ci­a­tion and stat­ed that the annu­al proof of use was suf­fi­cient, a final proof of use is no longer required. The High­er Admin­is­tra­tive Court, on the oth­er hand, said that cit­i­zens and tax­pay­ers were enti­tled to a final report, but the State of Bran­den­burg could only request one to the extent that the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion would have to pro­vide it. And so it was quick­ly agreed before the High­er Admin­is­tra­tive Court that the asso­ci­a­tion would deliv­er a final report, but only with­in the scope of its pos­si­bil­i­ties, i.e. essen­tial­ly in the sum­ma­ry of the annu­al proof of use. In our opin­ion, every­thing could have been done ear­li­er and less complicated.

4. Club goals

Since it was found­ed in 1992, the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion has always been com­mit­ted to the same goals as part of its civic engage­ment, for nature con­ser­va­tion, eco­log­i­cal agri­cul­ture, envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion and nature research. Noth­ing has changed in that regard for 20 years.

In 2000, how­ev­er, the state of Bran­den­burg rad­i­cal­ly changed its orig­i­nal strat­e­gy of entrust­ing the nation­al park asso­ci­a­tion with the estab­lish­ment of its only nation­al park and has since want­ed to run the park itself. For this, the state of Bran­den­burg has waived at least 10 mil­lion euros in fund­ing from the Fed­er­al Agency for Nature Con­ser­va­tion. There­fore, an unnec­es­sary amount of mon­ey from the Bran­den­burg state bud­get had to be invest­ed in the nation­al park project. That does­n’t seem to be par­tic­u­lar­ly smart and far-sight­ed, as the nature con­ser­va­tion funds in the state of Bran­den­burg are not enough, not even for the nature parks and bios­phere reserves that have already been des­ig­nat­ed. It does not seem to be par­tic­u­lar­ly respon­si­ble to con­cen­trate all the finan­cial resources and per­son­nel posi­tions still avail­able in the state of Bran­den­burg for nature con­ser­va­tion in the small nation­al park, even at the risk of hav­ing to close or give up the nature parks. In any case, the respon­si­ble envi­ron­ment min­is­ter, Ani­ta Tack (Die Linke), obvi­ous­ly wants to pre­vent pri­vate spon­sors from show­ing how they can man­age large pro­tect­ed areas just as well or even bet­ter, in any case cheap­er. Of course, sov­er­eign tasks always remain with the respon­si­ble state author­i­ties. How­ev­er, if the com­pe­tent author­i­ties do not want their expe­ri­ence and com­pe­tence in the nation­al park because they are afraid of pri­vate com­pe­ti­tion, the nation­al park asso­ci­a­tion can also set oth­er pri­or­i­ties. One of these addi­tion­al focal points is the com­bi­na­tion of nature con­ser­va­tion and eco­log­i­cal agri­cul­ture on the wild pas­tures, on which aurochs-image breeds, water buf­fa­lo and bison graze. That is good for the bio­di­ver­si­ty of the flood­plain, good for the farm­ers, good for the tourism indus­try and good for all vis­i­tors. It is also good for the free and hap­py bovines and healthy for the consumers.

Nobody can blame the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion for secur­ing their eco­nom­ic exis­tence and abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly for 13 years with­out fund­ing, cre­at­ing jobs and pur­su­ing their goals inde­pen­dent­ly. Fund­ing should always only be a boost to financ­ing, some­thing that would also be desired from oth­er sub­sidy recipients.

The asso­ci­a­tion is still very inter­est­ed in real­iz­ing its four above-men­­tioned asso­ci­a­tion goals in the nation­al park. But he can also do this in the areas actu­al­ly adja­cent to the nation­al park, as he is not bound by the nation­al park bor­ders. In any case, he does not see him­self as the admin­is­tra­tor of total reser­va­tions, because that is, as every­where in the world, also in Ger­many, a real state task.