Nation­al park before the settlement

The amend­ment — that means weak­en­ing — of the Nation­al Park Act con­tra­dicts Bran­den­burg, Ger­man and inter­na­tion­al require­ments and frame­work conditions

In the coali­tion agree­ment signed by the Bran­den­burg Prime Min­is­ter and SPD state par­ty chair­man Platzeck, there is lit­tle to be read under the head­ing of nature con­ser­va­tion, only that the Nation­al Park Act is to be amend­ed, i.e. weak­ened. It is note­wor­thy that this law was drawn up almost exact­ly 10 years ago by the then still green Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Platzeck and passed by the state par­lia­ment with a large major­i­ty. The respon­si­ble Bran­den­burg Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Woid­ke, cites three points as rea­sons for this sud­den and rad­i­cal change of heart:

1. Nature con­ser­va­tion in gen­er­al and the nation­al park in par­tic­u­lar pre­vent busi­ness set­tle­ments and the cre­ation of new jobs.

This accu­sa­tion has nev­er been sub­stan­ti­at­ed, and cer­tain­ly has nev­er been proven, and it does not apply, at least for the Low­er Oder Val­ley. The oppo­site is the case. The nation­al park cre­at­ed numer­ous addi­tion­al jobs, not only in the nation­al park admin­is­tra­tion and in the nature watch, but also in non-prof­it nature con­ser­va­tion and tourism.

2. The nation­al park locks peo­ple out and should be made more acces­si­ble for tourism.

This analy­sis is wrong and the demand non­sen­si­cal. The net­work of trails in the nation­al park is extreme­ly dense. In addi­tion, the numer­ous, large-scale nature parks and bios­phere reserves are pri­mar­i­ly avail­able for nature tourism in Bran­den­burg; the nation­al park itself does not even take up 0.3% of the land area. Unlike in a nature park, nature con­ser­va­tion has pri­or­i­ty here. But even in the Low­er Oder Val­ley there is still plen­ty of space for tourist activ­i­ties, for exam­ple in the land­scape pro­tec­tion area that sur­rounds the nation­al park. Not much has hap­pened here in terms of tourism and there is plen­ty of space for Woidke’s addi­tion­al activ­i­ties. Our asso­ci­a­tion has made appro­pri­ate sug­ges­tions, for exam­ple keep­ing attrac­tive large mam­mals in spa­cious exhi­bi­tion enclosures.

3. The nation­al park is not accept­ed by the local population.

This accu­sa­tion is only par­tial­ly true and prefer­ably applies to some local politi­cians. It remains to be said that a nation­al park is not a Schwedt city park or a region­al park for the Uck­er­mark dis­trict, but, as the name sug­gests, a park for the Ger­man nation and we find over­whelm­ing approval for nation­al parks in gen­er­al and the Low­er Oder Val­ley Nation­al Park in particular.

The fact that accep­tance in the region, espe­cial­ly among func­tionar­ies, can still be improved, is main­ly due to the con­tra­dict­ing and less than goal-ori­en­t­ed nation­al park pol­i­cy of the state gov­ern­ment. That start­ed with the appeal of the then Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Zim­mer­mann in 1992 to tear down the bar­ri­ers set up by his col­league Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter to reg­u­late the road net­work in the nation­al park. Since then, the state gov­ern­ment has nev­er made it clear to the region, and has sup­port­ed it with appro­pri­ate dona­tions, that the nation­al park is an impor­tant, irre­versible project of the coun­try. Instead of act­ing in a con­cil­ia­to­ry and medi­at­ing man­ner, the respon­si­ble state min­is­ter has rather incit­ed the var­i­ous actors against each oth­er. In addi­tion, the accep­tance argu­ment, car­ried for­ward like a mon­strance, is hyp­o­crit­i­cal. In oth­er state projects that are to be imple­ment­ed for rea­sons of the com­mon good, such as at Schöne­feld Air­port, the mas­sive region­al resis­tance of the local pop­u­la­tion affect­ed is com­plete­ly ignored. The objec­tions of those affect­ed are stored at the Fed­er­al Admin­is­tra­tive Court with evi­dence of wash­ing bas­kets. The state gov­ern­ment is unim­pressed. Obvi­ous­ly, dou­ble stan­dards are being used here and it becomes clear that the nation­al park has not yet been a seri­ous­ly oper­at­ed project of the state of Brandenburg.

The rea­sons for an amend­ment giv­en by the oppo­nents of the nation­al park are there­fore not con­vinc­ing. Nev­er­the­less, the amend­ment of the Nation­al Park Act, espe­cial­ly at the insti­ga­tion of the region­al mem­ber of the state par­lia­ment, Bischoff, was writ­ten into the coali­tion agree­ment. What is meant by this is clear, because the coali­tion fac­tions SPD and CDU already decid­ed on a detailed draft amend­ment before the elec­tion, which is now to be imple­ment­ed after the elec­tion, albeit on a much small­er par­lia­men­tary basis. Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Woid­ke has described the amend­ment to the Nation­al Park Act as urgent. The Asso­ci­a­tion of Friends of the Ger­­man-Pol­ish Euro­pean Nation­al Park Unteres Oder­tal e. V. does not con­sid­er the Nation­al Park Act of 1995 to be a par­tic­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful law, it is ver­bose and poor in con­tent, but at that time it was a work­able com­pro­mise between the most diverse expec­ta­tions, demands and interests.

This com­pro­mise pack­age, which was only suc­cess­ful at the sec­ond attempt, should not be untied again. Any­one who wants to amend the Nation­al Park Act today wants to dilute and weak­en it.

This inevitably leads to con­sid­er­able con­flicts with inter­na­tion­al, Ger­man and Bran­den­burg nature con­ser­va­tion law. If the Nation­al Park Act were to be amend­ed as planned, the only thing left of the Nation­al Park would be the title, the label, so to speak. All oth­er con­tent that essen­tial­ly defines a nation­al park dis­ap­peared. The asso­ci­a­tion cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly rejects such a bla­tant fraud­u­lent label. You have to be hon­est with peo­ple. If it says nation­al park, it has to be a nation­al park! A nation­al park is not some­thing arbi­trary, but requires cer­tain qual­i­ty stan­dards. These are set by the World Con­ser­va­tion Orga­ni­za­tion in IUCN Cat­e­go­ry II, in the Fed­er­al Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act and in the Bran­den­burg State Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act.

1. IUCN Cat­e­go­ry II (Nation­al Parks): This is about the pro­tec­tion or restora­tion of nat­ur­al ecosys­tems. At least 75%, pre­vi­ous­ly 50% of the area must be in a state that is not or hard­ly influ­enced by humans. The nat­ur­al process­es are pro­tect­ed. Tourists and vis­i­tors are welcome.

2. Fed­er­al Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act (2002) Sec­tion 24 (2): Nation­al parks aim to ensure the most undis­turbed flow of nat­ur­al process­es in their nat­ur­al dynam­ics in the pre­dom­i­nant part of an area. As far as the pro­tec­tion pur­pose allows, nation­al parks should also serve the sci­en­tif­ic envi­ron­men­tal obser­va­tion, the nat­ur­al his­to­ry edu­ca­tion and the nature expe­ri­ence of the pop­u­la­tion. You must (Sec­tion 24 (1) sen­tence 3) “be in a pre­dom­i­nant part of their area in a state not or lit­tle influ­enced by humans or be suit­able to devel­op into a state or to be devel­oped into a state that guar­an­tees the most undis­turbed flow of nat­ur­al process­es in their nat­ur­al dynamics”.

3. Bran­den­burg Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act (2004) Sec­tion 20: When the Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act was amend­ed this year, Sec­tion 24 Para­graphs 1 and 2 (Nation­al Parks) of the Fed­er­al Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act were adopt­ed verbatim.

The draft amend­ment of the gov­ern­ment groups SPD and CDU (Jan­u­ary 27, 2004) fol­lows 3 tendencies:

1. There should no longer be any devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties towards a nat­ur­al flood­plain ecosys­tem. Every­thing that indi­cates devel­op­ment and change is delet­ed. The cur­rent sta­tus quo is to be cemented.

2. The pre­vi­ous users of the area — farm­ers, fish­er­men, anglers, hunters, water sports enthu­si­asts, etc. — should not be restrict­ed in their pre­vi­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties to pur­sue their hobby.

3. The pow­ers of the nation­al park admin­is­tra­tion, although already min­i­mal, will be fur­ther cur­tailed. Agree­ments on agree­ment are delet­ed, the nation­al park admin­is­tra­tion is only to be involved in all impor­tant deci­sions affect­ing the nation­al park (rules of con­duct). To this end, all impor­tant deci­sions must be agreed with the Nation­al Park Board of Trustees in the future. Mem­ber­ship in the Board of Trustees, reg­u­lat­ed in Sec­tion 14 of the Nation­al Park Act, is com­plete­ly turned on its head. The rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fed­er­al min­istries and half of the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the nature con­ser­va­tion orga­ni­za­tions are kicked out, instead the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the lob­by­ists’ asso­ci­a­tions of farm­ers, foresters, anglers, fish­er­men and hunters come in. The board of trustees, which has been com­plete­ly reor­ga­nized in this way, is grant­ed a veto right in all nation­al park matters.

In a nation­al park that deserves this name, nat­ur­al devel­op­ment process­es have pri­or­i­ty. We call them wilder­ness areas. They can also be called Zone I areas or total reserves. The Nation­al Park Act pro­vides for 50% of the total area to be des­ig­nat­ed as Zone I areas. The leg­is­la­ture has giv­en 15 years time for this, a suf­fi­cient peri­od of time, one would think. There is no point in length­en­ing this peri­od of time. The prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with the des­ig­na­tion of Zone I areas will not be eas­i­er to solve in 10 or 15 years, but rather even more dif­fi­cult to solve, even if today’s politi­cians would no longer be in office and respon­si­ble. But such an atti­tude is short-term inter­est politics.

In sum­ma­ry, it can be said that there are insuf­fi­cient rea­sons for an amend­ment to the Nation­al Park Act. The draft amend­ment pre­sent­ed by the coali­tion fac­tions would mean that noth­ing would be left except the label “Nation­al Park”. The sta­tus quo would be cement­ed, change or devel­op­ment would no longer be pos­si­ble. As the experts at the min­istry have clear­ly shown, the nation­al park is already the weak­est in Ger­many. Is that the typ­i­cal Bran­den­burg route? Bran­den­burg would expose itself to ridicule inter­na­tion­al­ly and nation­wide with such a fraud­u­lent label.

The state of Bran­den­burg is at a cross­roads, either to imple­ment a real nation­al park on 0.3% of the state’s area in accor­dance with the exist­ing nation­al park law, or, if one thinks that it can­not afford a nation­al park, to trans­form the area into a nature park ded­i­cat­ed to tourism. But then Bran­den­burg would have to cope with the pre­dom­i­nant­ly neg­a­tive con­se­quences of such a deci­sion. It would not serve tourism, because there are enough nature parks in Bran­den­burg. The alleged or actu­al prob­lems that exist with a nation­al park would not be solved with such a deci­sion. Bran­den­burg, how­ev­er, would have embar­rassed itself once again with its nature con­ser­va­tion pol­i­cy across bor­ders and with­out borders.

There is no zoo with­out ani­mals, no aquar­i­um with­out water, no opera with­out an orches­tra and also no nation­al park with­out wilder­ness areas — with­out human inter­ven­tion on at least half of the area. One has to choose.

Unlike Min­is­ter Woid­ke, we do not see the Nation­al Park and the Nation­al Park Act as a “block on the leg”, but rather an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a struc­tural­ly weak region. We should use this oppor­tu­ni­ty together