The "Tour de Natur" wants to offer a cycling tour again this summer. The route will lead from Singen via Lake Constance and the Allgäu to Munich. The cyclists are expected to be on the road from 29 July to 13 August 2023. The project is still in the early stages of planning. People from the region who would like to support this year's tour can contact the organisation.

Polluter LEAG finally pays for sulphate contamination in Frankfurt's drinking water

Cottbus, 28.02.2023. The environmental network GRÜNE LIGA regrets that there will be no landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice on the Cottbus opencast lake for the time to come. LEAG and water supplier FWA have apparently agreed on a payment in millions, thus ending their legal dispute. Other proceedings concerning the Cottbus-Nord opencast mine, however, remain pending before the courts. The flooding of the lake continues to be interrupted repeatedly due to a lack of water.

"It was high time that the coal company, as the polluter of the sulphate pollution, at least pays for part of the consequential costs. Unfortunately, this avoids a fundamental clarification by the European Court of Justice as to what value drinking water extraction has over mining interests. In view of the foreseeable further consequential damage from its opencast mines, LEAG obviously wanted to avoid a court clarification." René Schuster of the GRÜNE LIGA comments on the reached agreement.

Commenting on today's visit of the Federal Minister of Economics to the coal company LEAG, the environmental network GRÜNE LIGA points out that an earlier coal phase-out is necessary and does not need the company's consent:

"LEAG's mining plans are absolutely incompatible with the 1.5 degree target. In view of the fact that the Nochten opencast mine has no permit whatsoever to operate after 2026, an earlier coal phase-out does not have to be bought off from LEAG with concessions. No more mining areas must be permitted whose consequential damage to the general public is incalculable," says René Schuster of the GRÜNE LIGA.

60 organisations from agriculture and society are calling for the "We're fed up!" demonstration on 21 January. The GRÜNE LIGA is taking part. The slogan of the 2023 agricultural turnaround demonstration is "Good food for all - instead of profits for a few". Thousands of people are expected to march through Berlin's government quarter to kick off the world's largest agricultural trade fair, the Green Week, in support of consistent climate protection, species-appropriate animal husbandry, the preservation of biodiversity and global solidarity.

Climate crisis, food poverty, dying farms - the list of failures in agricultural, social and environmental policy is long. The balance sheet after one year of traffic light government is sobering and can be summarised as "too slow and too little". The "We're fed up!" alliance demands more speed in the socially just agricultural and food transition. In concrete terms, this means: fair producer prices for farms and the food trade, as well as much more support for those affected by poverty, so that they can afford fairly and sustainably produced, healthy food. 

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.