A rooster and two chickens on a dung heap Photo: picture alliance
From BZ/dpa
The smell of manure heaps, cows mooing, sheep bleating: the Free Voters in the Brandenburg state parliament are calling for such noises and smells to be protected as a cultural asset, following the example of France.
“It makes the country what it is,” said the parliamentary group leader of BVB/Free Voters, Péter Vida, on Tuesday in Potsdam. With a motion, his parliamentary group wants to get the state government to introduce a Federal Council initiative to change the Federal Immission Control Act so that certain smells and noises in neighborhood conflicts are not classified as disturbing.
The goal is that this creates more acceptance, said Vida.
In August, Bavaria’s Council of Ministers decided on a Federal Council initiative based on a resolution from the state parliament to protect the sensory heritage in Bavaria and all of Germany.
Bavaria’s Environment Minister Thorsten Faithr from the Free Voters can imagine, for example, the protection of bread baking or beer brewing, church or cow bells.
According to him, the aim is to avoid legal disputes with agricultural or craft businesses over smells and noises from rural life, such as the crowing of a rooster in the morning. In this way, administrations and courts could be efficiently relieved.