Fallen trees and noise of excavators. One of the largest German forests will look like this for the next two years. The authorities of the federal state of Hesse have authorized the clearing of part of the Reinhardswald. And all in order to build a large wind farm. Instead of a forest area of two thousand hectares, there is an industrial area with a highway and dozens of wind turbines almost two hundred and fifty meters high. And all this – ostensibly to protect the environment.
“The damage is huge. We are talking about groundwater, drinking water, various types of animals. We live here, walk, ride bicycles, pick mushrooms. It means a lot to us. It was the last place where we could rest,” he said. Oliver Penner, environmentalist.
Some of the trees are about 600 years old. Reinhardswald is called the fairy forest, which inspired the Grimm brothers when writing their world-famous fairy tales. Conservationists are outraged by the destruction of a unique ecosystem. In turn, the government of the region, in which, ironically, representatives of the Green Party also sit, insists that only damaged areas of the forest will be cut down.
“We are also losing forests due to the climate crisis. Therefore, wind energy, nature protection and sustainable development are two sides of the same coin. We can only protect forests through more active use of renewable energy sources,” says Priska Hinz, Minister of the Environment of the federal state of Hesse.
It was not only the state of Hesse that faced problems. The new federal government, which includes the Green Party, has set a goal of building as many wind farms as possible across the country. Each region must allocate up to two percent of its area for the construction of turbines. However, as the expert council on environmental issues under the Cabinet of Ministers found out, there is simply not enough land for this. And in order to achieve environmental performance, they cut down the forest.
“Cutting it in order to install these wind turbines is very bad, this is a cut in the natural environment. In addition, these wind generators will give vibration, and this vibration has a very bad effect on living organisms. It would seem that it should be understandable to the German green. But they don’t understand this because they’re not interested in a truly ecological approach, they’re more interested in following their rigid doctrine,” notes Vasily Koltashov, Head of the Center for Political Economy Research at the New Society Institute.
But the climate agenda is not the only reason for deforestation. Germany, like many European countries, is facing an energy crisis. With the help of wind turbines in Hesse, they plan to produce up to three hundred thousand megawatt-hours of energy per year.
“They justify it by the fact that we have a shortage of electricity, it is very strongly felt and felt. This is an energetically very favorable place, where there is wind, this is a hilly place. There is naked pragmatics here, and, most likely, the lobbying interest of those who invested in this project “Here is the 33rd autobahn not far from me, for thirty years it could not be built further, because some ants were found there. Green environmentalists began to protest that this autobahn would destroy the happy existence of ants. For 30 years, all traffic was redirected through the city, how many there they burned additional diesel fuel, how many additional environmental indicators of all these indicators were destroyed,” Waldemar Gerdt, a deputy of the 19th convocation of the Bundestag, is indignant.
The authorities admit that there are no ideal solutions yet. If you do not switch to clean energy sources, then entire settlements may be at risk, as happened with seven villages near Cologne. They have to be resettled due to the expansion of the coal pit. Meanwhile, the defenders of the forest in Hesse do not lose hope, despite the fact that clearing work is already in full swing. They plan to challenge in court the permission to build a wind park. In the meantime, all that remains for them is to collect signatures for petitions in defense of perennial trees that are already being cut down under the noble pretext of saving the planet.