Grüne on the environment and animal welfare

The Greens oppose dumping sludge from dredging in rivers and ports into the North Sea or inland waters. Instead, uncontaminated dredged material is to be used for coastal protection. Coastal protection plans are to be revised in light of the effects of climate change.

Dredgers take mud out of rivers and ports. The Greens do not want this mud dumped in the sea. Clean mud should help protect the coast. Coastal protection plans should fit climate change.

The program names dike protection and protection of the islands as key parts of coastal defense, along with nature-friendly handling of sediment. The goal is sustainable sediment management that complies with the EU Water Framework Directive. The general coastal protection plans are to be updated and carried out together with neighboring states.

The Greens want to create a fund to tackle marine litter and keep plastic waste out of rivers, lakes, ports and the North Sea. Old munitions lying in the sea are to be recovered. The program justifies this with the Wadden Sea's importance for biodiversity and climate protection.

The Greens want to protect the sea better. A new fund should help fight trash in the sea. Old munitions should be taken out of the sea. There should be more floodplains along rivers.

Marine litter is to be reduced through a range of activities and projects. The program calls the old munitions time bombs that must be recovered. In addition, more river floodplains are to be created to store carbon dioxide and protect against flooding. The Wadden Sea is highlighted as a unique World Heritage site.

The Greens want to write into the state water law that public drinking water supply takes priority over other uses. This is meant to let municipal water utilities keep providing good, affordable drinking water. Because of the climate crisis, new water extraction areas are also to be approved faster.

Drinking water for people should come first. The Greens want to put this into the water law. Other users of water come after that. Water utilities should be allowed to use new areas for drinking water faster.

The priority rule is to be placed in Lower Saxony's water law. The platform assumes that regional utilities will need to open up new drinking water extraction areas and adjust how much they draw from existing ones because of the climate crisis. To that end, permitting is to be sped up and requirements made uniform and reliable.

The Greens want to avoid waste and reuse raw materials as fully as possible, naming zero waste as the goal. Repair, durable products and reusable packaging systems are to be supported. According to the platform, this protects the climate and environment and reduces dependence on raw material imports.

The Greens want much less trash. Products should last long and be easy to repair. Raw materials should be used again and again. There should be more reusable packaging and repair cafés. Then the state needs fewer raw materials from abroad.

The state is to support zero-waste projects, plans for plastic-free municipalities and reusable packaging in delivery and mail-order retail, and to examine a statewide reusable system for takeout food and drinks. Repair workshops and cafés and municipal pilot projects against littering are to be supported. At the federal and EU level, the Greens want to push for durable, repairable and easily recyclable products. For unavoidable raw material imports they call for certified supply chains with environmental, social and human rights standards. A working group with municipalities is to distribute landfill sites fairly and in an environmentally sound way.

The Greens want to refuse all emergency approvals for neonicotinoids because, according to the platform, these insecticides endanger bees, bumblebees and other insects. They also want to support beekeeping in the state.

Some pest poisons also harm bees. The Greens want no exceptions for these poisons. They want to help beekeepers. Beekeepers are people who keep bees.

The platform rejects emergency approvals for neonicotinoids, explicitly including for sugar beet farming. Beekeeping associations are to get support for their training courses, while the Greens consider a mandatory beekeeping license counterproductive. Harvesting methods that spare insects are also to be funded. The stated goal is more diverse farmland and an end to species loss.

The Greens want livestock farming to be geared to the animals' needs. Straw bedding and outdoor access are to become standard, and tethering and procedures without anesthesia are to end.

The Greens want farm animals to have better lives. Pigs and cattle should get straw and time outside. Cattle should no longer be tied up. Procedures without anesthesia should be banned. Farmers should get money to rebuild their barns.

The platform rejects keeping animals on fully slatted floors; tethering of cattle is to end and cow-calf rearing in dairy farming is to be promoted. Procedures without anesthesia are to be banned and the county veterinary offices strengthened. The Greens want to press the federal government for effective financing tools for converting livestock farming and add state funding. The party is critical of breeding for maximum output; the ban on breeding that causes suffering is to be enforced in livestock farming together with the federal government.

The Greens want to push at the federal level for a general eight-hour limit on animal transports and a ban on longer transports to countries outside Europe. Slaughter close to the farm is to be supported and CO2 stunning ended.

Many animals travel in trucks for a very long time. The Greens want to allow eight hours at most. Trips to slaughterhouses in Germany should take four hours at most. More animals should be slaughtered nearby. The state should check big slaughterhouses itself.

Transports to non-European countries lasting more than eight hours are to be banned, including for breeding animals. From six hours on, a second driver is to be on board; trips within Germany to slaughter and fattening sites are to last four hours at most, waiting time included. The party wants tougher penalties, more inspections and a ban on trips along uncertified routes. Mobile slaughter, shooting on pasture and decentralized slaughter facilities are to be funded. In slaughterhouses, qualified staff are to have more time for stunning; the state is to inspect large plants and the task force at LAVES is to grow.

The Greens want to do without animal testing as far as possible and give more funding to alternative methods. For university teaching, a complete phase-out is to be examined.

The Greens want far fewer tests on animals. They want to give more money for other methods. University classes may stop using animal tests completely. Animal welfare advocates should have a say in approvals.

Funding for projects that reduce animal testing or develop alternatives is to rise. A prize for research without animal testing is planned. The bodies that assess and approve experiments are to be filled half with animal welfare advocates, and inspections are to increase. The EU directive on animal experiments is to be implemented consistently in Lower Saxony.

The Greens want tighter rules for keeping pets and wild animals privately. Plans include a statewide neutering ordinance for cats, a certificate of competence for keepers of exotic animals and a positive list of suitable species.

The Greens want new rules for pets. Cats should be neutered. People who keep exotic animals should prove their knowledge. A list should say which species people may keep at home. Sending animals by mail should be banned.

Cat neutering is to be regulated by a state ordinance and backed by funding programs. The party supports the identity check for online pet sales announced at the federal level and wants to ban shipping animals by mail. Animal fairs and non-commercial trade are to be inspected more closely to reduce impulse purchases. According to the platform, dangerous animals do not belong in private hands; strategies against animal hoarding are to be developed. The platform cites species protection, disease risks and overwhelmed keepers as reasons.

The Greens oppose keeping wild animals in circuses and back the federal government's planned positive list. Zoos are to keep wild animals in the most animal-appropriate way possible. A central register is to record exotic wild animals.

The Greens do not want wild animals in circuses. Zoos should keep wild animals in better ways. The state should keep a list of exotic animals. Then officials can check where such animals live.

Veterinary and nature conservation authorities would both have access to the central register of exotic wild animals. Zoos are to pay more attention to newer findings in zoo biology. Zoos would get support so they can take in confiscated wild animals that cannot be released. The federal positive list would define which wild animals may still be kept in circuses after a transition period. For native wildlife, the Greens want to review current hunting practice.

The Greens want the state and municipalities to guarantee funding for animal shelters. A grant program is to pay for renovating the buildings and making them more energy-efficient. Volunteers and animal welfare groups are also to be strengthened.

Animal shelters should get enough money. The state and the towns should make sure of that. There should be money to repair the buildings. Volunteers should get more recognition.

A grant program is planned for structural renovation and energy upgrades of animal shelters. A Lower Saxony animal welfare prize would honor volunteer work. The state law on participation and legal standing of animal welfare organizations would be revised to strengthen their rights in dealings with authorities. The state's dog law would also be evaluated.

The Greens want binding limits on land consumption: below three hectares a day by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Settlements should grow upward rather than outward and vacant lots should be built on, if necessary through an obligation to build.

Every day new land is built on. The Greens want to cut this sharply. From 2050, no new land should be used up on balance. Buildings should grow taller instead. Empty lots in towns should be built on.

The party wants to close gaps between buildings through incentives and together with municipalities, with an obligation to build as a last resort. State planning is to set clearer and more binding rules against urban sprawl in rural areas. Sufficient distances between new construction and protected Habitats Directive sites would be required. New development areas would be allowed only as an exception and would have to be climate neutral, with central climate-neutral heat and power supply such as solar or geothermal energy. Land pools, land certificates, vacancy managers and pilot projects such as "Jung kauft Alt" (young buys old) or home-swap exchanges are meant to promote land-saving housing.

The Greens want to amend Lower Saxony's water act and regulate water withdrawals more strictly. Permits would be granted only once efficient technology and alternatives have been exhausted. Exemptions from the water withdrawal fee for extractive industries would end.

The Greens want to protect groundwater better. Anyone who wants to take water must first save water. Companies for oil, gas, sand and gravel should pay a fee for water. So far they have exemptions.

The program justifies this with pollution, drought summers and growing competition for water. Counties would be allowed to build in a precautionary climate buffer when permitting groundwater withdrawals, and usable volumes would be calculated from current measurements and climate forecasts. The party names process water, rainwater and gray water as alternatives. The responsible authorities would get enough specialist staff. The fee exemptions would end for the oil and gas industry, sand and gravel extraction, and mining of mineral resources. Contributions to water and soil associations would take into account the benefit of deciduous forest and peatland for water bodies.

The Greens want to reduce nitrate, germs, drug residues and microplastics entering water bodies, starting with those who cause the pollution. A polluter fund would make drug manufacturers share the costs of water treatment. Salt discharges by the company K+S would end by 2027 at the latest.

There are pollutants in rivers and lakes. The Greens want to reduce them. Whoever pollutes the water should pay for it. Drug makers should pay into a fund. The company K+S should stop discharging salt by 2027.

Excess nutrients are to fall through effective enforcement of fertilizer law and livestock farming tied to available land. An updated strategy would reduce the use of antibiotics and medicines in animals and humans. A study would show how heavily soils and water bodies are contaminated with microplastics, followed by targeted measures. The polluter fund is meant to cover rising costs of wastewater and drinking water treatment. On the Weser, the party says the river is not a channel for industrial waste.

The Greens hold the potash industry responsible for cleaning up its legacy waste. Residues from potash mining should primarily be put back into the mines or else processed. Flooding mines with fresh water should end.

Potash mining leaves salty waste behind. The Greens want the companies to clean it up themselves. The waste should go back into the mines. Nobody should fill mines with fresh water anymore.

The platform calls it unacceptable if the EU Water Framework Directive and the lower limits agreed in 2016 for the Werra and Weser rivers are not met. In the party's view, dumping construction rubble on potash heaps does not stop salt from washing into waterways. The state waste management plan is to be revised. To end fresh-water flooding, the Greens seek changes to the Federal Mining Act and to the state's General Mining Ordinance.

The Greens oppose further deepening of the Elbe, Weser and Ems rivers and advocate a joint port strategy for northern Germany. Contaminated dredged material from the seaports should be separated and recycled in a facility on land rather than dumped at sea.

The Greens do not want to dig the Elbe, Weser and Ems rivers deeper. The ports in the north should work together better. Sludge from the ports often contains pollutants. It should be treated on land and not go into the sea.

The platform calls for measures that sharply reduce the amount of dredged material. For contaminated material from northern German seaports, especially Hamburg, the party seeks a separation and recycling facility on land. No sludge at all should be dumped in coastal waters. Dumping in the open sea would be tolerated only for a limited transition period.

With a water development plan called "200 wild streams," the Greens want to return streams, rivers and lakes to a more natural state. According to the platform, only four percent of Lower Saxony's waters are in good ecological condition, although the EU requires this for all of them by 2027.

Only a few waters in Lower Saxony are in good condition. So the Greens want to make streams, rivers and lakes more natural again. There is a plan covering 200 streams. The state should provide enough money for it.

The state is to provide sufficient funding and make it easier to acquire land. Responsibilities are to be clearly assigned, including for small third-order waterways, and the maintenance associations are to bear fewer planning and financing risks. The current system is to be reviewed by 2023, including whether the state should take on the task itself in some cases. Anyone maintaining waterways would need a certificate of competence with training. Existing hydropower plants are to be upgraded so that migrating fish can pass them.

The Greens want to reduce the loss of soil through sealing, overuse and erosion, and to cut plastic use in farming and construction. On air, the platform demands that health-protection limits be met everywhere.

Good soil is being lost, for example under concrete and asphalt. The Greens want to slow this down. Farmers should get help to treat the soil gently. Less plastic should end up in the ground. The air should be clean enough everywhere too.

Land consumption is to fall, and farmers are to be supported in building up humus. Because the effects of microplastics in soil are barely researched, the party invokes the precautionary principle and wants, among other things, a deposit scheme for agricultural plastic sheeting. On air, the platform points out that people with low incomes often live near busy roads or power plants. Municipalities are to get help with planning that takes air quality into account.

The Greens want to carry out the agreements reached under the "Niedersächsischer Weg" (Lower Saxony Way) after the biodiversity referendum initiative. Beyond that, the EU goal of protecting 30 percent of land area is to be met step by step.

Many animal and plant species are dying out. After a citizens' petition, Lower Saxony made agreements on this. The Greens want to carry out these agreements. Also, 30 percent of the land should be protected. In protected areas, nature should come first.

As examples of the agreements, the platform lists less land consumption, meadow bird protection programs and better monitoring of endangered species through Red Lists. Nature conservation authorities are to be supported in their new tasks. Additional incentives are meant to advance the restoration of forests, peatlands and species-rich grassland, and endangered species are to get dedicated protection programs. The party accuses the SPD-CDU state government of delaying funding programs and regulations.

The Greens want to quickly designate all parts of the European Natura 2000 network that are not yet formally protected as nature reserves or landscape protection areas. Within protected areas, other uses are to take a back seat to conservation. In the party's view, Lower Saxony ranks last in Germany on this.

The EU requires special protected areas for nature and birds. In Lower Saxony, not all of them are properly secured yet. The Greens want to fix that quickly. In these areas, nature should come first. The state should check more closely.

Protected-area ordinances are to meet conservation standards, and conservation measures are to be carried out in practice, including in state-owned forest. Conservation agencies are to get enough staff. Together with farming and environmental groups, the party wants to further reduce exemptions from the ban on synthetic chemical pesticides on grassland in protected areas, with a state agency under the environment ministry doing the checks. Also planned are a public statewide register of ecological compensation sites and tighter checks on municipalities. At the federal level, the party will push for a binding impact-compensation rule in building law.

The Greens want to leave two percent of the state's land entirely to nature, with no use or intervention. The Wadden Sea and Harz national parks and the Elbe floodplain biosphere reserve are to stay protected, and new cross-state biosphere reserves are to be created in the Drömling and the southern Harz.

The Greens want more wilderness in Lower Saxony. On two percent of the land, people should not interfere at all. There should be new large protected areas, for example in the southern Harz. No more land there should be opened up for gypsum mining.

Together with Saxony-Anhalt, the Drömling biosphere reserve is to be advanced; with Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, one for the gypsum karst landscape of the southern Harz, for which the party seeks UNESCO recognition. A participation process with municipalities and regional stakeholders is meant to reconcile tourism, raw material extraction and conservation. The party opposes expanding priority zones for gypsum mining. More Ökologische Stationen (conservation field stations run by nature groups) are to be founded and existing ones permanently funded. Nature parks, geoparks and the state office of the conservation associations are to be strengthened.

The Greens want to create a network of connected habitats covering at least 15 percent of the state's land. Protected areas form the core and are to be linked by waterways, hedges, field margins, tree-lined roads and wildlife bridges.

Animals and plants need habitats that are connected. The Greens want such a network across Lower Saxony. It should cover at least 15 percent of the land. Hedges, streams, tree-lined roads and wildlife bridges link the areas.

Streams, rivers, lakes and floodplains with their buffer strips are to be joined into a "Blue Belt." The state is to take part in the Green Belt along the former inner-German border. Additional forest and wildlife bridges are meant to create corridors, for example for wildcats. Municipalities are to get help reclaiming roadside verges that have been absorbed into farmland over the decades. Tree-lined roads and rows of trees are to be preserved, newly planted and also protected as cultural heritage.

The Greens want to counter species decline with insect-friendly management of state-owned land, support programs for endangered species and statewide insect monitoring. Ecological land consolidation is to be reintroduced.

There are fewer and fewer insects and other animals. The Greens want to manage state land so that insects can live there. The state should regularly count how many insects there are. Endangered animals like the European hamster should get their own support programs.

Green spaces and protected areas owned by the state are to be managed in an insect-friendly way, and the state road authority is to maintain roadside vegetation gently. For highly endangered farmland species that also live on intensively farmed soils outside protected areas, the platform plans species support programs. The reintroduced ecological land consolidation would use EU funds to rearrange plots in ways that benefit nature, water and climate protection.

The Greens want to turn the measures promised after the referendum initiative for meadow birds such as the curlew, black-tailed godwit and snipe into concrete programs. Farmers would be compensated for lost yields and get extra incentives for bird-friendly land management.

Birds like the curlew nest in meadows. There are far fewer of them than before. The Greens want firm programs to protect them. Farmers should get money if they manage their meadows in a bird-friendly way.

According to the platform, populations have fallen by more than 80 percent in some cases since the 1980s because grassland was turned into cropland or is farmed intensively. The party considers previous protection programs insufficiently effective. The desired management includes extensive grazing. Results are to be reviewed continuously and measures adjusted as needed. Where necessary, regulatory requirements to protect the water balance would be added.

The Greens want to manage wolves through herd protection and support for livestock farmers. They reject a cap on the wolf population and general hunting. Individual wolves should be killed only in exceptional cases.

The Greens want to protect sheep and other grazing animals from wolves. They want more money for fences and guard dogs. They are against hunting wolves in general. Only single dangerous wolves may be killed.

The platform calls for better funding of preventive measures and a grazing-animal premium to improve farms' economic situation. Livestock guardian animals are to be supported, especially on dikes. A herd protection team would quickly help affected and neighboring farms after wolf attacks. Wolves that repeatedly get past protective fences or endanger people could be killed in exceptional cases. Lower Saxony's wolf ordinance would be revised together with all stakeholders, in line with EU and federal law and ruling out arbitrary shootings.

The Greens want to convert Lower Saxony's forests into more resilient deciduous and mixed woodland with native tree species. Ecological services are to be funded across all types of ownership because, according to the platform, drought and the climate crisis have badly damaged the forests.

Many forests in Lower Saxony are in bad shape. The Greens want more leafy and mixed forests. Native trees should grow there. Such forests cope better with heat and dry weather. Forest owners should get money for this.

Funding would go to measures such as leaving dead and damaged wood in place, building humus, retaining water, natural regeneration, preserving old forests and countering soil compaction. Forest types that help groundwater formation in dry regions would be rewarded, while subsidies for the non-native Douglas fir would end. The party wants to cut nitrogen inputs from livestock farming. The LÖWE+ program would be continued and developed further, also as a model for private-forest funding. Added to this are more advisory capacity for reforestation, wildfire protection plans and better equipment for fire departments.

In state-owned forest, climate and species protection are to take priority over commercial use. The Greens want to certify it under FSC or Naturland standards, bring more forest into public ownership and turn five percent of all forest into unused natural woodland.

The state owns one third of the forest in Lower Saxony. There, protecting climate and species should matter more than cutting wood. The forest should get an eco label. Part of the forest should not be used at all. The state should own more forest.

The five percent natural-forest goal is to be met mainly in public forests and requires designating more areas; private owners would get financial incentives. Citizens would have more say in how public forest develops. The party wants to help private owners with certification and forest conversion. Biocide use in forests is to drop markedly. Near-natural continuous-cover forests with high timber stocks would receive special funding.

The Greens want domestic wood to be used as efficiently as possible, mainly for durable products such as furniture and buildings. Use for paper and fuel is to fall substantially, and industrial-scale wood burning for electricity is to end.

Wood is a valuable material, but the supply is limited. The Greens want wood used mostly for houses and furniture. Less wood should go into paper and heating. Big power plants should stop burning wood.

The platform describes domestic wood as a particularly environment- and climate-friendly building material whose supply is limited. It therefore wants to strengthen so-called cascading use, meaning wood goes into long-lived products first. Forestry is still meant to supply the raw material society needs alongside the forest's other functions. The end to burning covers power generation and combined heat and power on an industrial scale.

The Greens want to better equip environmental and nature conservation agencies at state, city and county level. According to the platform, staff shortages mean too few inspections. Environmental offenses are to be prosecuted more vigorously and complaint offices set up.

The offices for protecting the environment have too few staff. So there are too few checks. The Greens want to strengthen these offices. People who harm the environment should be punished more often. There should be places where people can report harm to the environment.

The party sees under-resourced agencies as the reason existing laws are poorly enforced. The focus is on mandatory tasks such as the impact mitigation rules with compensation measures and implementing the EU Habitats Directive and Water Framework Directive. Environmental complaint offices would be newly created. The platform treats environmental crime as a serious offense that must not go undetected.

The Greens want to revise Lower Saxony's hunting law and shorten the list of species that may be hunted. Certain methods such as kill traps and den hunting are to be banned. Active hunters would have to prove their shooting skills.

The Greens want new rules for hunting. Fewer kinds of animals may be hunted. Traps that kill animals should be banned. Hunters should not shoot pets. Hunters must show regularly that they can shoot well.

Species that may no longer be hunted because of their population status would be removed from hunting law. The party rejects hunting predators, endangered species and hunting in enclosures; in protected areas hunting would be subordinate to the conservation purpose, including for geese. Live traps would need official approval, and owning or trading banned trapping devices would be prohibited. The platform opposes training hunting dogs on live animals. Hunting districts would preferably go to leaseholders whose main residence is nearby and who name a local substitute when absent.