SPD on the environment and animal welfare

The SPD wants to sharply limit land consumption in Bavaria and, in the long run, reach a circular approach to land use. Drinking water should stay clean, affordable, and publicly owned. Rivers, streams, and peatlands would be restored to a natural state.

The SPD wants Bavaria to build over less land. Towns should build inside their limits first, not at the edges. Drinking water should stay clean and affordable. It should belong to the public. Rivers and peatlands should become more natural again.

Tools would be developed that combine protection of nature and landscape with economic and social needs; development inside towns would take priority. The program wants to keep pollutants, microplastics, pesticides, drug residues, and nitrate out of water bodies and to cut nitrate surpluses in polluted areas. Water protection zones would be designated faster and soil sealing reduced. The SPD supports bans on the use of persistent chemicals that endanger health. According to the program, rewetting peatlands and restoring rivers and streams serve climate and species protection as well as natural flood control.

The SPD wants to protect the Bavarian Alps and shift tourism there toward a year-round, climate-friendly and sustainable model. Mountain and alpine pasture farming is to receive much more support because, in the platform's view, it helped create and maintains this landscape.

The SPD wants to protect the Alps in Bavaria. Tourism should run all year and harm the climate less. Mountain farmers should get more money. No tax money should go to snow cannons.

The platform commits to the international Alpine Convention, the principle of sustainable development and the Bavarian Alpine Plan of 1972. Support for mountain and alpine pasture farms is to rise sharply and be scaled to how difficult the land is to farm. The SPD rejects taxpayer subsidies for snow cannons. It considers close cooperation among municipalities and neighboring countries necessary to protect the Alpine region.

The SPD wants to stop species loss in Bavaria as quickly as possible because, in its view, it threatens people's livelihoods. Protected areas are to be better protected, enlarged and linked, and at least one more national park is to be created.

The SPD wants to stop animal and plant species from dying out. Protected areas should grow and be better connected. Bavaria should get at least one new national park. The SPD suggests the Steigerwald forest. Wolves may return, and the SPD wants to pay for damage quickly.

Avoiding damage to nature is to take priority over compensating for it. The Volksbegehren Artenvielfalt (the biodiversity referendum) is to be implemented consistently with regular progress checks; by 2030 a habitat network is to cover at least 15 percent open land of the state's area. The platform names the Steigerwald as the best site for a new national park, alongside more natural forest reserves and a conversion to climate-resilient mixed forests. The SPD welcomes the return of species such as the wolf and relies on management and quick compensation for damage. For beavers it considers regulation under EU environmental law sensible, and illegal killing of strictly protected animals such as the lynx is to be prosecuted firmly.

The SPD wants to secure the water supply across Bavaria and invest in pipes and wastewater systems. Drinking water supply should stay in municipal hands and take priority over other uses of water and land.

The SPD wants safe drinking water everywhere in Bavaria. The state should spend money on water pipes. Towns should stay in charge of drinking water. Private companies should not take it over.

The state is to invest in the water and wastewater network so that residents do not face additional fee increases. Municipal drinking water supply should keep clear priority over other uses. The SPD rejects a takeover by private corporations. State funding for pipe construction (the RZWAS program) is to be made permanent and opened to more municipalities.