AfD on the environment and animal welfare

The AfD wants nitrate limits enforced only where drinking water is sourced. When limits are exceeded, the specific polluter should be identified instead of designating whole areas as Red Zones. The platform doubts that farm fertilizer is the cause of high nitrate levels.

Nitrate is a substance that can get into water. The AfD wants rules for it only where drinking water comes from. If a level is too high, officials should find who caused it. Whole areas should no longer get strict fertilizer rules.

The platform treats drinking water supply as a municipal task, with joint utility associations serving security of supply. The AfD doubts agriculture is the cause because other EU countries supposedly lack the problem and nitrate sometimes occurs naturally. It also questions the limit itself. Higher levels should be allowed outside catchment areas. Environmental protection, drinking water, and agricultural use are to be given equal weight in legislation.

The AfD wants to ban slaughter without stunning entirely, even when it is justified on religious or cultural grounds. It also rejects the import, trade, and advertising of such meat. Existing animal welfare rules are to be strictly enforced.

Some animals are killed without being stunned first. This happens for religious reasons, for example. The AfD wants to ban this in all cases. It also rejects such meat from abroad.

According to the platform, the killing of farm animals must follow strict rules, and missing or incomplete stunning is unacceptable. The ban is to cover ritual slaughter, including halal slaughter. Religious or cultural reasons would no longer justify an exception. Meat from such slaughter should not be imported, traded, or advertised.

The AfD wants an official finding that the wolf population is secure and, on that basis, cull quotas and legally sound hunting. Losses from wolf attacks on livestock should be compensated faster and in full. Compensation schemes are to be developed for beaver damage.

The AfD wants hunters to be allowed to shoot wolves. There should be fixed numbers for this. If a wolf kills farm animals, the owner should get money quickly. There should also be money for damage from beavers.

A so-called acceptable population with cull quotas is to be set for the wolf. Monitoring of the wolf population in Hesse is to improve so that numbers and cull figures can be determined reliably. When livestock kills are assessed, the burden of proof is to be reversed in favor of those who suffered the loss. The beaver remains untouched as a specially protected species; affected land users are to be compensated quickly and without red tape.

The AfD wants no further areas of state forest taken out of use and wants the current management and conservation guidelines fundamentally revised. Hunting is to be preserved and promoted as a form of using nature.

The state's forest should stay in use. The AfD wants no more forest areas set aside. The rules for the state forest should change. Hunting should stay.

In the AfD's view, the 2018 state forest management guidelines and the 2022 conservation guideline restrict forestry in an impermissible way and should be revised. The state forest is to return from FSC certification to PEFC certification. Private and municipal forest owners should continue to receive strong support for reforestation. Hunting rights are to remain tied to land ownership. In addition, keeping horses in open stables is to be made easier by resolving conflicts between building law and conservation law.