My speech in the Bundestag on the amendment of the Agricultural Products – School Program Act:
Mr President, dear colleagues,
“Eat more fruit and vegetables, drink a large sip of milk every day!” Is the free text in the Agricultural Products School Program Act. But that’s not the point today! You have put the concerns of the forest into this law – nobody outside understands that anymore … THIS is how you create disenchantment with politics.
So now to the forest and we are grateful to our colleagues in the FDP for submitting an application for forest aid.
I recently asked the federal government about the status of the disbursement of funds for forest aid. As was to be expected, the answer was completely meaningless. According to the motto: “We have everything under control”. It’s nice that APPLICATIONS have already been made for 69% of the funds. The point is that the funds are paid out! The point is that these funds arrive IN THE FOREST! There is still no guideline for the funding requirements. There is no set of rules as to who is even eligible to apply. We definitely won’t save the forest like this!
Not only the bureaucracy burdens the forest owners. After all the calamities: bark beetle infestation, drought, storm,…. The forest owners do not even know how to remove their damaged wood from the forest or how to find a buyer. There are also storage and other operating costs.
The answer of the federal government: they aimlessly open one funding pot after the other. The coalition now wants to set up a “forest investment program” with a further 50 million euros for digitization and technology, machines, devices and back horses, systems and buildings.
Here there should be a subsidy of 40%. The remaining amount can then be financed through a low-interest program loan from the Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank. At least that’s the plan. Forestry contractors are just barely paying off the credit burdens from previous funding periods. We can see that now in the lockdown crisis: a troubled company, an over-indebted company cannot be saved with even more debt!
Dear colleagues, in addition to all this, large areas of forest are being taken out of management through grandiose ideas. Let’s take a look at Lower Saxony: there a so-called “Lower Saxony Way” is being taken: There they follow a green climate ideology and let the wood rot.
A foretaste of black and green: The forestry contractors have to interrupt their work from March to September, well-trained machine operators, such as the harvester drivers, will then give them a row. They will migrate to summer jobs, to horticultural businesses. This way in Lower Saxony is a wrong way!
The damaged wood urgently needs to be fetched from the forest – that brings us to your application, dear colleagues from the FDP: reactivation of old timber loading stations is important, that is right and urgent! For wood storage, as you suggested, you can also use Bundeswehr areas. Correct!
We have been demanding for a year now: let’s get Bundeswehr soldiers to help us as part of the administrative assistance, there is now enough work in the forest.
Dear colleagues: Wood is our most important CO2 storage, so please put more emphasis on the use of this renewable and sustainable building material. We demand a timber construction renaissance!
Dear colleagues from the FDP, at the end of the day, let me add one more thing: I was able to speak early this morning on the subject of artificial intelligence – Germany lags far behind the tech giants from China and the USA. If you ask for a blockchain solution in your application – then I don’t know what your hopes are for this government … Believe me, before blockchain comes we will probably see one or two more forest generations.
But the hope dies last. Thank you so much!
