Linke on the environment and animal welfare

The Left wants to fundamentally revise the 1994 land-use plan in the next legislative term with broad public participation, aligning it with climate protection, climate adaptation and securing housing. From 2030 at the latest, no additional land on balance would be paved over. Tempelhofer Feld would be designated as green space.

Berlin has a plan for how its land is used. It dates from 1994. The Left wants to redo it. People should have a say. From 2030, Berlin should not pave over any more land overall. Tempelhofer Feld should stay a green space.

The new plan would become part of climate-friendly urban, landscape and open-space planning and be embedded in a citywide open-space strategy with interim targets. Ecologically valuable open areas such as parks, cemeteries, allotment gardens, forests and meadows would be protected through planning. Expected population growth would be steered toward land already designated for building. The Left considers the existing plan outdated.

The Left wants to keep Tempelhofer Feld entirely free of buildings and preserve the law passed by referendum. It rejects construction and privatization. It bases this on the field's importance for recreation, the urban climate, and nature.

Tempelhofer Feld is a large open space in Berlin. The Left wants no building there. Berliners decided this in a public vote. That law should stay. The field is good for relaxing, for the air, and for animals and plants.

According to the program, up to 100,000 people visit the field on warm days as a free place for leisure and recreation. In the densely built inner city, it is said to matter especially to people living in cramped housing. The party also points to its role as a corridor for cool air, as storage for seeping rainwater, and as a habitat for plants and animals. The airport building is to be further developed together with its users.

The Left wants a citywide open-space strategy for Berlin so that parks, playgrounds and good environmental quality are within reach regardless of income. Socially disadvantaged areas are to benefit most, because the platform says environmental burdens are often higher there.

The Left wants more parks and playgrounds close to homes. Everyone should be able to use them, rich or poor. Poorer neighborhoods should get better green space first. There should be one plan for the whole city.

The strategy is to include concrete benchmarks, especially for open spaces that reduce heat and are close to homes. In areas with high social stress or vulnerability, the local climate and the supply of public green space are to be improved. To that end, the Left wants to fully implement the BaumEntscheid (a Berlin tree initiative) and reduce environmental burdens that harm health. It also supports civil-society efforts to turn paved surfaces into green and drainage areas. Alongside this, the platform calls for strong tenant protection, because in its view green space is used to push up rents.

The Left wants to generally permit swimming in the Spree and Havel rivers and make the banks of Berlin's waters publicly accessible. The platform provides for land purchases and, if necessary, expropriations to achieve this.

The Left wants people to be allowed to swim in the Spree and the Havel. The riverbanks should be open to everyone. Berlin should buy land for this. If needed, the city should also take land from owners by law.

The bathing water ordinance is to be changed accordingly, and projects that improve the Spree's water quality will get support. The riverside path plan will be continued and revised, with banks designed in line with nature conservation. The Left also wants to preserve and develop the Fischerpinte at Plötzensee, which faces demolition. It sees the site as an affordable, natural place to relax, especially for people from densely built neighborhoods such as Wedding and Moabit.

The Left wants to protect parks, forests, cemeteries, allotment gardens, and bodies of water from development and create additional natural areas. Especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods, noise, poor air, and heat would be reduced and more greenery added.

The Left wants to protect parks, forests, and garden plots. Nobody should be allowed to build there. The city should have more nature. Poorer neighborhoods in particular should get more green space.

The environmental justice atlas would be updated every two years and serve as the basis for measures. Laws protecting green spaces would be developed further, the Charta Berliner Stadtgrün (urban green charter) updated, and the species protection guide redone. New construction would have to include a binding minimum share of green space (biotope area factor). Forests would be treated less as a source of timber and more as a near-natural ecosystem. The EU Nature Restoration Regulation would be implemented, and in disadvantaged districts the state would buy land and turn it into green space.

The Left regards soil as a common good and wants to ensure that, on balance, no additional land is sealed from 2030 on. Any new sealing would have to be offset by unsealing an equal area within Berlin.

Sealed means the ground is covered with concrete or asphalt. The Left wants to balance this out by 2030. Anyone who covers ground must uncover the same amount elsewhere in Berlin. Bogs should become wet again.

The unsealing program would be carried out in the next legislative term, and compensation areas should be as close by as possible. A register would openly record losses and gains of green space as well as new and replacement plantings. The soil protection concept would be completed and submitted to the state parliament. Bogs such as Barssee in Grunewald would be rewetted to serve as carbon stores. Education and monitoring are planned against PFAS, microplastics, and other pollutants, with polluters paying for cleanup.

The Left wants to secure the quality of Berlin's water for the long term and give drinking water supply priority in all administrative decisions. Private wells and commercial water extraction would have to be reported, and companies would pay for surface water they withdraw.

The Left wants to protect Berlin's drinking water. Drinking water should always come first. People who have a well should report it. Companies should pay for water from rivers and lakes.

Permits for groundwater use would set minimum groundwater levels, and those who cause the costs of water protection would bear them. The EU Water Framework Directive would be implemented by 2031, partly to avoid sanctions. A construction program would keep ponds from silting up, and boat traffic would be regulated more tightly to protect shorelines. Fountains, wells, and hand pumps would be maintained and expanded. Trees would be watered with rainwater and treated graywater instead of drinking water.

The Left wants to rebuild Berlin on the sponge city principle, where rainwater seeps away and is stored on site instead of flowing into the sewers. This is also meant to keep wastewater out of the Spree and other waters.

A sponge city stores rain like a sponge. The water should soak into the ground. Then less dirty water flows into the Spree river. The Left wants to rebuild Berlin this way.

State-owned housing companies and public properties would lead on rainwater infiltration. In the combined sewer area, it would become easier to disconnect surfaces from the sewer, starting where emergency overflows discharge into open waters. The rainwater agency would be better equipped as an advice center. Laws would promote sparing water use and the use of graywater, along with pilot projects at state-owned housing companies. Rain barrels in public spaces would be easier to set up.

The Left wants to protect allotment gardens and community gardens by law and to preserve and expand them permanently through land-use planning. The platform argues that these gardens are places for people of all generations to meet and learn and that they contribute to local food production.

The Left wants to protect small garden plots in Berlin. A law should do this. Community gardens should stay too. There should even be more of them.

The protection would cover both public and private plots and would also be anchored in the land-use plan and in local development plans. The existing allotment garden development plan is to be turned into a full urban development plan for allotments, drawn up with public participation and adopted by the state parliament. New green spaces are to include a binding share of community gardens.

The Left wants to implement the clean air plan immediately and keep it up to date. Air pollution and traffic noise are to be reduced through less car traffic, lower speeds and more trees, among other things; at BER airport the night flight ban is to be extended.

The Left wants cleaner air and less noise in Berlin. Fewer cars should be on the road. Cars should also drive more slowly. At BER airport, planes should stay on the ground longer at night. The party also wants a ban on fireworks.

The platform lists less private motorized traffic, lower speed limits, noise-reducing redesign of roads and rail lines, and planting trees and shrubs. Ambient noise in heavily touristed areas is to be reduced. The noise reduction plan is to set out further steps against aircraft noise around BER, and the party will press the airport company's shareholders for a night flight ban from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. At the federal level it will push for a comprehensive ban on fireworks.

The Left wants to expand the circular economy in Berlin, following the order of prevent, reuse, recycle, dispose. Repair, lending, secondhand goods and reusable packaging are to be promoted, recycling rates raised and organic waste processing expanded.

The Left wants less trash in Berlin. Broken things should be repaired more often. The city will keep paying part of the cost. Every district should get a store for used goods. Restaurants should use more reusable packaging.

The repair bonus is to become permanent and be expanded; each district is to get at least one secondhand department store and one neighborhood circular-economy center. The Zero Waste Agency is to be better resourced, pool citywide expertise and hand out grants. A support program for reusable packaging is planned for small and mid-sized restaurants, while public order offices, with more staff and money, are to systematically penalize violations of the duty to offer reusable packaging. The platform also lists deposit-bottle boxes in busy places, higher collection and recycling rates, a second biogas plant and more investment in the facilities of the city sanitation company BSR. Retailers and restaurants are to donate surplus food to nonprofit organizations.

To curb illegal dumping, the Left wants to expand waste disposal services and bring them closer to where people live. In the platform's view, disposal must not depend on income; the city sanitation company BSR is to get more staff.

The Left wants a cleaner city. There should be more places to drop off trash. Bulky waste means big items like old furniture. Each household should get two free pickups a year. The city sanitation company should get more workers.

Plans include more recycling centers, dedicated bulky-waste sites in large housing estates, underground containers especially in new neighborhoods, and more reliably scheduled BSR neighborhood collection days, also on retail parking lots. Heavily littered areas are to be cleaned more often and get more public trash cans. Housing companies are to hire caretakers across their estates, and residents and neighborhood councils are to be more involved. The system of street-cleaning classes and how costs are shared is to be reviewed. Districts are to get more money for park upkeep, and park wardens are to be funded permanently by the Senate.

The Left wants to expand environmental education for children, young people and adults. The platform sees protecting the climate and the environment as a task that cuts across every area of city life.

The Left wants more environmental education. Children should learn more about climate and nature in daycare and school. Adults should get programs too. Schoolyards should become greener. Students should have a say in this.

The platform names school gardens, forest schools, urban nature rangers and park wardens as part of this work. The "Edible City" and "green learning places" projects and the Long Day of Urban Nature are to keep receiving funding. The district coordination offices for environmental education are to be strengthened. Schoolyards are to be redesigned to be close to nature and resilient to climate impacts, with students taking part.

The Left wants to draw up a plan to end animal testing and to fund alternative methods. It also wants to reinstate a full-time state animal welfare commissioner and give financial support to the animal shelter and the pet food bank.

The Left wants to end animal testing in Berlin. There should be a plan with fixed dates. Other research methods should get funding. Berlin should again have an animal welfare officer. The animal shelter should get enough money.

Following the Dutch example, the phase-out plan is to include concrete steps and timelines for each field and be developed together with researchers, industry and animal welfare groups. Berlin's research prize for alternatives to animal testing is to be awarded again. The commissioner is to work independently with a budget of their own, and the law allowing animal welfare groups to sue is to be developed further. The Berlin animal shelter is to get enough money for education and outreach, and there is to be funding for neutering stray cats. Responsibility for all animal species is to sit in a single department for environment and animal welfare.

The Left wants to abolish the list of dog breeds classed as dangerous and instead check whether owners are fit to keep dogs. Hunting law is to be refocused on animal and nature protection, and the platform plans separate protection and management schemes for pigeons, rats and birds in the city.

The Left wants to end the breed list for dogs. This list names dog breeds seen as dangerous. Instead, owners should show they can keep a dog. Hunting foxes and martens should stop. Pigeons should get supervised lofts.

The party rejects putting dogs down after bite incidents; off-leash areas are to be kept and expanded. On hunting, it calls for a complete ban on lead ammunition and an end to hunting predators such as foxes and martens. In supervised district pigeon lofts, numbers are to be controlled by swapping eggs; a rat management plan is to balance public health, water protection and animal welfare. Protection of birds and bats is to be taken into account in building design, renovation and demolition. Public cafeterias are to offer at least one plant-based dish, and at the federal level the party seeks higher animal-keeping standards, a ban on circus animals and a lower value-added tax on plant-based products.