The Bavarian state government has settled a major conflict with environmental associations for the time being with a “orchard pact” comprising 600 million euros.

"It is a positive day today because we are leading a long debate to a happy ending," said Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) on Monday in Munich after a meeting of the "round table fruit trees".

He presented the pact together with the participating associations BUND Nature Conservation and the State Federation for Bird Protection (LBV), the responsible ministers and the moderator of the round table, the former state parliament president Alois Glück (CSU), in the Hofgarten.

Anna-Lena Ripperger

Editor in politics.

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Söder then planted the first of a total of one million new orchard trees that the pact envisages by 2035.

The decline in the orchard population of around 70 percent to around six million trees, which has continued since the 1960s, is to be halted in this way.

Glauber: The pact is a triple win

According to Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber (Free Voters), half of the money for this comes from the Bavarian state budget and half from the federal government and the European Union.

"What the coral reefs are to Australia, the orchards are to Bavaria," he said.

The pact that has now been concluded is a “triple win, for local value creation, for regional structures and of course for biodiversity in Bavaria”.

With several thousand animal and plant species living there, orchards are among the most species-rich habitats in Central Europe.

Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber (CSU) said the pact offered an opportunity to regain the lost appreciation for this form of cultural landscape.

It also provides funding for the machinery and equipment required for management.

The Bavarian BUND chairman Richard Mergner made it clear that the agreement, much praised by the state government, came about only through pressure from environmental associations.

BUND and LBV filed a popular complaint with the Bavarian Constitutional Court in 2020.

They criticized the fact that the protection of the orchards required in the biodiversity referendum “Save the bees!” Had been undermined by “trickery” in the amended Bavarian Nature Conservation Act.

The allegation was aimed at the changed criteria for protection, which the associations considered hardly feasible.

Now that the agreement has been reached, they want to let the lawsuit rest.

The moderator of the round table, Alois Glück, had already successfully implemented the petition for the protection of species.

He called the agreement reached on Monday a "mutual pact", which sends out a signal for the entire nature conservation and environmental policy.