Ms. Heilig, the CDU calls on the city to end the illegal occupation of the trees in the Fechenheim forest.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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From an environmental point of view, building a few tree houses in a forest is less of a concern than cutting down the forest entirely.

However, building tree houses is illegal.

According to the Hessian Forest Act, everyone is allowed to enter the forest, but only "for the purpose of recreation".

´When it comes to the legal assessment, the courts rightly make a very differentiated judgment.

As far as I know, the clearing of the Dannenröder forest last autumn in Central Hesse led to legal disputes.

And for example at Hambacher Forst, the courts later found that the evacuation of the tree houses was illegal.

So you think it's legitimate to build tree houses in the city forest?

This protest is a form of civil disobedience. One can criticize that. It's about a forest that is to be felled and that would be lost to the green belt in toto. We live in the 21st century and in a time of climate change. The population is very worried about what will happen next with our forests, groundwater and global warming. Against this background, it is absolutely right to question whether a motorway construction project of this dimension, which was planned decades ago and should not be finished until 2031, still makes sense today. And anyone who comes to the conclusion that it is no longer right to build the Riederwald tunnel today can protest against it in a democratic, peaceful manner.

You could just as easily argue that it is difficult for a city to take action against citizens who illegally build garden huts in the green belt, but at the same time to tolerate tree houses being built in a forest owned by the city of Frankfurt.

The forest is not owned by the city government.

It is the property of the people.

First of all, the forest belongs to everyone.

The FDP, which is part of the city government and coalition partner of the Greens, has also called for such an eviction.

There is currently no reason to evacuate the protest camp.

The Autobahn GmbH, which is building the Riederwald connection for the federal government, announced in October that it would postpone the clearing of the trees in the Fechenheim forest by one year.

The tree activists see this as their success.

Autobahn GmbH is postponing clearing for one year to winter 2021/2022 because it does not yet own the forest area.

This is a failure of the Autobahn GmbH.

Before a “project sponsor”, in this case the Autobahn GmbH, can use an area, be it forest or something else, it must first regulate the ownership structure.

And these ownership relationships are not regulated.

The Fechenheimer Wald is not owned by the Autobahn GmbH.

In your opinion, the GmbH should have applied for the “provisional property briefing”, as it is called, in good time - in spring or summer?

Yes.

As the project sponsor, the GmbH has to lay the foundations for its further procedure, i.e. in the case of clearing part of the Fechenheim forest.

She hasn't done that before.

Some fear that the delay will mean that Frankfurt will experience scenes like in the Dannenröder forest, where police and environmental activists clashed hard.

I wouldn't draw any parallels there.

Again: peaceful forms of protest are appropriate to our democracy.

We have a difficult situation here: It is a project that no one would tackle today in such a way.

It is important to me that the conflict between those who say that so many facts have now been created that one can no longer go back and those who are of the opinion that one cannot always resign themselves to the facts that have been created that this conflict is carried out rationally and peacefully.

To this end, I have had intensive discussions with everyone involved for weeks.

The facts created are that there has been a legally binding planning approval decision since spring 2020 and thus building rights for the Riederwald tunnel.

That's correct.

But there are still changes to the plan.

They still have to be disclosed.

The population still needs to be involved in the form of hearings.

However, it is only about the connection of the park-and-ride parking garage on Borsigallee, for which there is to be a motorway connection.