Oberallgäu - The Federation of Nature Conservation has come to the conclusion: The present plan for the Grünten cannot be approved in this way.
Oberallgäu - The hearing at the Oberallgäu district office as part of the approval process for the expansion plans on the Grünten has been completed.
In addition to more than 1000 objections of very different scope, the detailed statement of the Bund Naturschutz in Bayern BN is now on the table.
The district group Kempten Oberallgäu, lawyer Dirk Teßmer (Frankfurt) and the BN state commissioner Martin Geilhufe explained the BN's arguments and came to the conclusion: The present plan cannot be approved in this way.
The recent dispute over expansion plans also shows that the region - and politicians - have not done their homework when it comes to tourism.
Oversized expansion plans
As part of the approval process for the expansion plans on the Grünten in the Allgäu Alps, the Bund Naturschutz (BN) has submitted a comprehensive statement to the Oberallgäu District Office.
"The oversized expansion plans on the Grünten are in stark contrast to the urgent climate and sustainability goals," said BN State Commissioner Martin Geilhufe.
“Tourism in the Allgäu and Bavarian Alps must be qualitatively improved and not expanded quantitatively.” Geilhufe is faced with a kind of repetition: A few years ago a similar scenario on the Riedbergerhorn triggered passionate discussions.
Instead of upgrading and expanding to summer operation, the BN relied on demolition, renaturation and well-thought-out visitor management.
“That can work;
you just have to want it and do it right. "
"Project ignores the prognoses of climate change"
The managing director of the BN district group Kempten-Oberallgäu Julia Wehnert assesses the planned interventions and uses as far more difficult and more permanent than described in the planning documents: “This is not about replacing old lifts with more modern lifts, it is more about opening up new ones for summer tourism and, in addition, a massive expansion of artificial snowmaking in winter. The entire project ignores the prognoses of climate change, at the same time the loss of biotope areas, of biodiversity and significant interventions in the landscape protection area are accepted. "
"In the vicinity of the mountain station and in the summit area there are very valuable biotopes and retreats for animal species that are sensitive to disturbance," explains the conservation expert of the BN district group Kempten-Oberallgäu, Alfred Karle-Fendt.
"If the planned 10-seater gondola lift can transport up to 1,500 people per hour up the mountain even in summer, there is a risk of considerable damage to the flora and fauna on the Grünten."
The black grouse on the Grünten is endangered
Fendt fears that the black grouse - already threatened with extinction on the Grünten - will come under further pressure from the mass production.
It doesn't help if the black cock balz is shown in the planned “nature show” in the summit station.
Karle-Fendt continues to criticize that the planning “cannot be surpassed in terms of cynicism”.
Thomas Frey, BN regional advisor for the Allgäu, warns against further commercialization.
Two gastronomy offers are planned on the summit ridge, each with several hundred seats.
There is also a new alpine hut where a bar is also planned.
In addition, the cable car and gastronomy should be possible until midnight twice a week for celebrations and events on the mountain.
For Frey this is going “in the direction of the department character”.
"And that worries us very much."
Parking garage destroy cultural landscape
The BN criticizes in its statement that the project is associated with considerable interventions in nature and the landscape and there is a risk of adverse effects on species-rich protected areas (FFH area, landscape protection area).
Associated with this are the destruction and impairment of 10 hectares of protected open land biotopes, the clearing of 3.3 hectares of mountain forest, some of which are protective forest, and about 5.5 hectares of land are sealed.
“A new cable car route is being built.
The valley station with a large car park and multi-storey car park will be built in a previously intact cultural landscape.
Habitat types protected in Europe and belonging to the European natural heritage are in danger of being destroyed ”, the BN draws attention to the main reasons for its rejection of the project.
Over 100 new snow-making shafts
Due to the increasing effects of the climate crisis, skiing at this altitude (cable car between 900 and 1,450 m) would only be possible with an immense amount of artificial snow-making and, according to forecasts, hardly possible even with artificial snow-making in the foreseeable future, argues the BN . Artificial snow-making is planned to be expanded from 9 to 24 hectares. To this end, a new storage basin, two soccer fields in size, with a volume of over 43,000 cubic meters, whose dams would be 15 meters high, is to be built.
For the over 100 new snow-making shafts for snow cannons, considerable earthworks would be necessary all over the mountain, including in protected biotopes.
A new commercial road over 6 kilometers long is to be built up to the Grüntengrat, which would be artificially snowed in as a toboggan run in winter.
Nature conservation law not taken into account
The Frankfurt lawyer Dirk Teßmer (who was connected to the press conference via video) comes to the conclusion in an initial assessment of the approval process: “The planning is not very complicated from a legal point of view.
Or to put it another way: There is a problem in every nook and cranny. "
Essential concerns of nature conservation law are not sufficiently taken into account.
"Even at this point, the authorities would have to say: That's it."
The legal expert close to the BN cannot envisage approval of the project for numerous reasons.
Too much would speak against it.
Should the project nevertheless be approved, the BN intends to file a lawsuit.
