AfD on the environment and animal welfare

The AfD wants to make greater use of lakes, rivers, and coasts for tourism, sports, and business. Restoration of waterways to a natural state should not hinder this use. Locks and infrastructure would be preserved on smaller waterways as well.

The AfD wants to use lakes and rivers more for vacations and sports. Nature protection should not block this. Locks should be kept. There should be charging stations for electric boats.

The platform names water tourism, recreational boating, fishing, and water-related industries as areas with untapped potential. In the party's view, nature conservation and use must be considered together; it calls preserving the river and lake landscape a matter of course. Locks would remain in place on secondary and recreational waterways too. The AfD wants the state to support the charging network for electric boats being built from 2026 between Berlin and the Mecklenburg Lake District.

The AfD wants to review the state government's decision to stop accepting certain classes of waste at the Ihlenberg landfill at the end of 2035. The site is to keep operating until an alternative location in northern Germany has been decided. The platform calls the phase-out wrong and politically motivated.

The Ihlenberg landfill is set to stop taking some kinds of waste after 2035. The AfD wants to look at this decision again. The landfill should stay open longer. That applies until another site in northern Germany is found.

According to the platform, the phase-out was triggered by an internal audit report, while an independent special investigator later found no breaches of waste law by the operator. The AfD argues that the state has handled waste for all of northern Germany for decades and that no solution exists for the period afterward. Otherwise, it says, companies would have to use distant, costlier, and in the party's view environmentally questionable sites. Neighboring states are to be held to their responsibility through the Bundesrat.

The AfD wants forest protection to take priority over expanding renewable energy and wants to upgrade forestry because of demand for timber. It is critical of converting forests to continuous-cover stands because they yield less wood. The platform regards hunting as nature and animal protection.

The AfD wants to protect forests. Forests should matter more than new wind and solar plants. Forests should also give enough wood for building. For the AfD, hunting protects nature.

The platform wants to keep the state's wood-processing industry and points to rising demand for construction timber. Continuous-cover forest, meaning forest managed without clear-cutting, is said to yield less, especially softwood, than the conventional system used so far. Imports shift environmental costs to regions with lower standards, which the AfD says belongs in the debate. Culling plans are to be closely coordinated between landowners and hunters, where possible based on assessments of browsing and bark-stripping damage.

The AfD wants a clear limit on the wolf population and the swift removal of wolf hybrids. Returning species are to be given room but not allowed to spread unchecked across cultivated land. Insect protection is to rest on research rather than on blaming agriculture.

The AfD does not want too many wolves. Wolf-dog mixes should be removed quickly. Animals like bison and elk should get space. But they should not spread everywhere. Researchers should study insects more closely.

The platform justifies the limit by saying Germany has few suitable habitats for wolves. Hunters and land users are to be released from obligations for wildlife damage compensation and liability in this context. On insects, the AfD calls for comprehensive research into populations before measures follow. It rejects patents on heritage crop varieties, and old livestock breeds are to get more attention as a genetic reserve. Young people are to be drawn to beekeeping through partnerships between beekeepers and educational institutions.

The AfD wants to strengthen water monitoring, sewage treatment plants and advisory services for farmers. The aim is to prevent pollution before it occurs. Groundwater is to be protected from overuse in the long term.

The AfD wants to keep water clean. Rivers and lakes should be checked more closely. Sewage plants should get better. Farmers should get more advice. People should not use too much groundwater.

The program focuses on prevention: avoiding pollution is seen as better than cleaning it up later at great expense. To that end, water monitoring, sewage treatment and agricultural advisory services are to be strengthened. The program treats groundwater as a core part of basic public services. It is to be protected through science-based measuring networks, openly available data and regionally adapted management that takes natural fluctuations into account.