Natural bank margins are an achievement of the popular initiative “Save the bees”.
But for many bodies of water it has been a matter of dispute whether they are natural or artificial.
The water management office has now created clarity in the district - also with the help of historical research.
District - Markus Brandtner is happy about every stream or pond that has a name. Because then he has less work. The man from the Water Management Office (WWA) in Weilheim adorns himself with the title “Coordinator of the waters edge”. Sounds boring? No, his job has been quite exciting in the past few months - but also laborious, fragmented and time-consuming. Brandtner and his team ensured that a change in the Bavarian Nature Conservation Act, which has been in place since August 1, 2019, can now finally be implemented. The decisive factor for this was the successful petition for the protection of species “Save the bees”. Since then it has been forbidden to practice arable and horticultural activities closer than five meters to the edge of natural or semi-natural bodies of water. “That sounds pretty clear,” says Brandtner. "But that's not it."
The shores of the third-order waters in the district are around 500 kilometers long - the five lakes and the Würm are not included. That is not a little. The neighboring district of Weilheim-Schongau, teeming with streams, ponds and ponds, for example, has a full 2,000 kilometers. According to the WWA study, which lasted around two months, 66 percent of the small bodies of water in the Fünfseenland are subject to border strips - for example the Deixlfurter See near Tutzing, the neighboring Lange Weiher, the Röhrlbach, which runs through the Leut-stettener Moos, or the Aubach am Pilsensee.
Every now and then it has been noticed that one or the other farmer does not (yet) stick to the rule and pulls his field to the shore, says Brandtner when asked.
“But we don't report that.
Our job is only the mapping. ”The nature conservation authority in the district office has to check.
Now it can because the WWA has provided clarity.
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Farmers have to keep a distance of five meters from natural waters like here.
The picture shows a tributary to the Hauzengraben west of Traubing.
From the point of view of the water management office, more trees and bushes would be desirable there.
© Weilheim Water Management Office
The investigation also shows that one in three of the small bodies of water is to be classified as artificial and therefore not subject to a verge. It's often not that easy, says Brandtner. "Ditches that farmers dug 200 or 400 years ago to drain the fields are often difficult to distinguish from natural watercourses." The small, artificial ditches are piling up in the rather boggy south of the district, particularly close to the Kampberg district of Tutzing. Brandtner and Co. asked the farmers about the creation of the so-called reference cards, but also resorted to old maps. "There is a lot of historical research behind it," says the project manager. Incidentally, (old) canals that transport water for a mill or a sawmill are also considered artificial. Or fish pond,fed by a stream.
Farmers, horticulturalists or tree nurseries now have planning security, as the WWA positively puts it. District builder Georg Zankl, whose fields in Gilching border the Starzelbach and the Russengraben, did not sign the referendum. But he thinks the five-meter rule is "positive". Especially since the farmers get compensation payments. "You have to protect the streams," says Zankl, although he is of the opinion: "If you pay attention, that's how it works." Farmers or horticulturists who feel they have been treated unfairly can appeal until December 2nd. “Experience has shown that we expect objections, but not many,” says WWA project manager Brandtner. The matter is officially and legally valid as of July 1, 2022:Then the updated maps with the previously unclear cases should be in the Free State's environmental atlas.
The district group of the Bund Naturschutz (BN) expressed relief in a current press release: “We welcome this long overdue implementation, because near-natural riparian strips are hotspots of biodiversity.
The wider, the more diverse they are.
Woods and near-natural bank vegetation are a great asset on rivers. They provide a habitat for amphibians, spiders, dragonflies, beetles, ants and other insects, ”write Constanze Gentz and Helene Falk.
Birds and bats also populated the bank areas.
Now it is up to the farmers and owners to make the areas even closer to nature.
The BN recommends the online guidelines of the state of Baden-Württemberg.
Where does the duty apply?
The so-called hint cards show on which banks the distance requirement applies and on which not.
They can be viewed on the homepage of the Water Management Office www.wwa-wm.bayern.de under the tab "Strips of the waters edge".