Biodiversity goals in danger? 

Positioning of the AG-Wasser on hydropower development and river restoration against the background of the biodiversity goals and the climate crisis 

on 08.12.2022 14:00 - 17:00 CET

According to the WWF's Living Planet Report, the global population of wild species has declined by 69% since 1970. At 83%, the loss of species in lakes, rivers and wetlands is even more dramatic. Environmental associations, anglers and other organisations have joined forces at the European level to form the Living Rivers Coalition in order to halt this trend and reverse it. With the Green Deal, the Water Framework Directive, the Biodiversity Strategy and the recently proposed Nature Restoration Law, good instruments have been and are being developed at EU level to achieve this goal. At the same time, the expansion of renewable energies is being pushed forward on a large scale. In the course of this, there are increased efforts to streamline the planning requirements for infrastructure projects, in particular also by directly undermining nature and water protection regulations. This, with the intention of counteracting the climate crisis, further exacerbates the European and global biodiversity crisis.

The sustainable use and equitable distribution of water is one of the most pressing problems of our time. At the same time, scarce freshwater resources and their associated ecosystems are being overexploited, polluted and damaged all over the world. Whether water will still be sufficiently available and drinkable in the future, and who will have access to it, depends more than ever on political decisions around water use. To discuss these challenges, we cordially invite you and your colleagues to an online seminar. Details on the programme and registration can be found below.

Programme

14:00: Welcome

Jürgen Maier, Forum Environment and Development

14:10: Presentation of the FUE position on hydropower

Thilo Papacek, CounterCurrents 

14:40: "Break Free" - Restoring river ecosystems by dismantling transverse structures 

Michael Bender, Living Rivers Foundation 

15:10: Commentary on the Renewable Energy Directive by WWF 

Tobias Schäfer, WWF

15:40: Hydropower in development cooperation 

Jutta Himmelsbach, Misereor

16:15 h: Break 

16:30: Hydropower to hydrogen? The Inga III Project

Salomé Elolo, Femmes Solidaires

Registration: roth (at) forumue.de

The event will be held in German with English translation. 

You can find the invitation here: www.grueneliga.de/images/Wasser/FORUMUE-AGWASSER-81222.pdf 

A photo exhibition about an endangered forest in Upper Lusatia (Eastern Saxony) was opened with a vernissage in the Tharandt Kuppelhalle on Friday evening (18 November). LEAG, a company owned by the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský, plans to expand the Nochten open-cast lignite mine and destroy the forest to do so. Together with the environmental network GRÜNE LIGA, photographer Markus Pichlmaier made the approach of the open-cast mine to forests and villages a visual experience. The exhibition "UNverkäuflich" was opened by Carolina Bräuer from the association "Kuppelhalle Tharandt e. V." and Rebekka Schwarzbach from the GRÜNE LIGA.

The photographs and collages, comprising 15 motifs, are on display in the cultural centre, which is known far beyond the region - a traditional former baths with a classicist entrance building - until 10 January 2023. (Pienner Str. 13, 01737 Tharandt).

Opening hours: Monday to Thursday: 8 a.m. - 6:30 p.m., Friday: 8 a.m. - 1 p.m., Saturday / Sunday: according to event schedule.

"It is a special honour for us to be able to present our exhibition in Tharandt, a place known for forest research," said Rebekka Schwarzbach. In the Tharandt Forest, models of sustainable forestry were developed for the first time in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century. The Forest Botanical Garden, founded in 1811, is considered one of the oldest in the world. Already as a student at the Sustainability University in Eberswalde (Brandenburg), she had heard about Tharandt again and again as the "Mecca of forest research", Schwarzbach reported.

At a half-year meeting in Dresden on Saturday, the environmental network GRÜNE LIGA looked at how energy consumption can be limited in the long term beyond the current crisis. At the meeting, representatives of member groups from Berlin, Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony discussed with several speakers.
Dr. Lars-Arvid Brischke from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg presented the results of the "Living Spaces" research project, which has been running for several years.

"In many owner-occupied housing estates in Germany, single-family and two-family houses are only occupied by one or two people, and often complete flats in two-family houses are empty. At the same time, many older people feel overwhelmed and lonely in such living situations. They would like to see downsizing, barrier-free design and a mixed-generation house community." Dr Brischke summarises the results of a survey conducted in the project.

During the Christmas season, Berlin's Wörtherstraße will once again be transformed into a family-friendly Advent eco-market on Kollwitzplatz. The GRÜNE LIGA Berlin cordially invites you to attend on the Sundays 27 November, 4, 11 and 18 December.

The legal dispute initiated by an objection of the GRÜNE LIGA Thuringia concerning the overbuilding of the Werrabahn line in the district of Hildburghausen by the district road K 530 has now been decided. On 25 October 2022, the district of Hildburghausen withdrew its complaint against the objection decision of the Thuringian State Office for the Environment, Mining and Nature Conservation (Thüringer Landesamt für Umwelt, Bergbau und Naturschutz: TLUBN) of 7 May 2021. This means that it is now legally established that the district road K 530 in the 2nd construction section (CS) between Eisfeld and Heid is a blacktop construction that was built by the district without lawful authorisation.

Grit Tetzel, Managing Director of the GRÜNE LIGA Thuringia, explains: "First of all, this is good news for the reactivation of the Werrabahn. Even if the exact variant is still to be found in a regional planning procedure, all options for the important rail gap connection between southern Thuringia and Upper Franconia now remain. For us, it is now above all of interest how the unlawful state of the black construction of the district road K 530 is ended. We believe that both the district of Hildburghausen and the planning approval authority are now obliged to immediately implement the decision of the Thuringian State Office for the Environment, Mining and Nature Conservation. Moreover, the intervention by the new construction of the K 530 was superfluous, as an extension of the existing district road close to the existing situation would have been completely sufficient".