From Hildburg Bruns
Big fight over little lizards! Strictly protected sand lizards must die so that space can be made for new graves in the Gatow Landscape Cemetery. Environmental groups are sounding the alarm.
“For me, the burial of people has priority,” says Spandau’s building councilor Thorsten Schatz (39, CDU). To make room for 500 new Muslim graves, trees have to be cleared and the ground levelled. Schatz fears that “one or the other sand lizard will die in the process.”
The animals (12-20 cm) sleep through the winter in hiding and only stir again in April. But then there is already a grave emergency. The last funeral service must take place on March 24 without an extension.
There are around 9,000 Muslim graves in the landscape cemetery in Gatow. Only ten percent of the deceased actually came from Spandau Photo: LSF
Gatow is the only large cemetery in the state of Berlin that provides space for burial according to the Islamic rite. And for ten years, the district has been warning the Senate that the expansion will take time.
Environment Senator Bettina Jarasch (54, Greens) has now reacted: “There is a special permit that allows construction work, although it risks killing,” said her spokesman Jan Thomsen to the BZ
However, the condition applies to finding and protecting the animals in hibernation as far as possible. Environmental groups criticize the fact that centrally located other cemetery areas are being used for new buildings instead of being used for graves.
Macabre: 20 years ago, the area in Gatow was specially created as a compensation area for sand lizards from other parts of the city.