Agriculture minister proposes more funds for climate action by forest owners
Tagesspiegel Background / 威力彩玩法
Federal agriculture minister Cem 脰zdemir has presented several proposals to protect Germany鈥檚 forests, including more funding to land owners to introduce climate measures. Conflicting interests of forest owners relying on the commercial use of timber and conservationists calling for woodlands to be preserved and used for carbon storage have been a key topic at the special meeting of Green Party politician 脰zdemir and state agricultural ministers. 脰zdemir advocated balancing interests with a , such as an amendment to the Federal Forest Act aimed at making forests more 鈥渟pecies-rich and climate-resilient鈥 with predominantly native tree species. The agriculture ministry (BMEL) further earmarked 200 million euros to compensate forest owners for the financial impact of climate protection and biodiversity measures.
Till Backhaus (SPD), state agricultural minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, made the case for maintaining commercial use of forests, while Baden-W眉rttemberg鈥檚 Peter Hauk (CDU) criticized the "dubious strategy of the EU" to close off forests as part of its biodiversity strategy, Tagesspiegel Background . The federal agriculture ministry鈥檚 timber construction initiative supports the use of wood from sustainable, predominantly domestic forest management for building, saying it 鈥渕akes a significant contribution to climate protection and the conservation of finite resources鈥. According to NGO NABU, however, the processing of wood currently binds around 3 million tonnes of CO2 in products each year. By contrast, Germany鈥檚 forests binds around 60 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
The impact of changing climate conditions on Germany's forest has become an increasing cause for concern in Germany in the past years. A string of exceptionally hot and dry summers has inflicted great damage on woodlands.