SPD on the environment and animal welfare

The SPD wants to make water a priority of state policy and bring the related strategies together centrally. The aim is to hold water across the land, renew installations and better protect waters and fish.

The SPD wants to take great care of water. Water should stay in the land longer. To do this, it wants to renew and build ditches, reservoirs and weirs. It also wants to protect rivers, lakes and fish better.

Water structures such as ditches, reservoirs, dams, weirs and pumping stations are to be upgraded and newly built as part of climate adaptation. The SPD wants to examine whether to introduce a third category of waters for small water bodies and to strengthen the water and soil associations. Wastewater is to be used more and the fourth treatment stage in sewage plants is to be advanced. For the water balance of the Spree river, which depends on water pumped out of lignite mines, the program wants to find solutions. After the 2022 fish die-off in the Oder river, protection of waters and fish species is to be expanded; compensation for damage that protected species cause to fisheries is to continue.

The SPD wants to strengthen the Lower Oder Valley National Park, promote biodiversity in towns, and preserve and replant tree-lined avenues. Operators of power plants and open-pit mines are to keep paying for restoring mining land in Lusatia.

The SPD wants to protect nature better. A national park should get more powers. More species should be able to live in parks and gardens. Coal companies should pay themselves to restore old mining land.

The administration of the Lower Oder Valley National Park is to become the lower state authority for forestry, hunting, fishing, water and nature conservation, as the program says is common in other national parks. The state competence center for street trees and avenues in Großbeeren is to be expanded, also together with Berlin. Municipalities are to get help with noise protection and clean air, especially for people living near industrial and traffic areas. On land restoration in Lusatia, the program stresses the operators' duty to pay and does not want to release them from it.

The SPD considers the current wolf rules unsuitable for protecting grazing animals and regulating the population, and calls for an approach geared to population size. It also wants to convert forests to more mixed woodland and clearly reduce game numbers in some places.

The SPD wants new rules for the wolf. It says today's rules do not protect sheep and cattle well enough. Forests should get more kinds of trees. In some places there should be fewer wild animals.

Converting to mixed forest is meant to make woodland more stable and lower the risk of forest fires. The state forestry enterprise is to keep its structure and serve as a model for other forest owners; private forestry associations will continue to get support. Game populations are to drop noticeably where that helps endangered species, forest development and the reduction of game damage. The program highlights the volunteer work of hunters and the role of the hunting cooperatives.