A private piece of forest near Rohne is to make way for the Nochten open-cast lignite mine, according to the environmental network Grüne Liga. The expropriation and clearing will not be stopped by the Federal Constitutional Court with a temporary injunction, the environmental network announced. The application for such an injunction was rejected. The court order is available to the German Press Agency.
According to the Green League, the energy company Leag is said to have already announced the clearances from January 2. "With today's decision, the coal company can create facts on January 2. The affected landowners will nevertheless file a constitutional complaint," explained René Schuster from the Green League.
The legal dispute concerns a private forest plot near Rohne, a district of Schleife (Görlitz district). It has been leased to an environmental group since 2019, which claims to organize cultural and educational activities there. The energy company Leag is planning to excavate the area for the expansion of the Nochten open-cast mine.
Court sees public interest in power supply
As the owner does not want to sell the land, the energy company applied for the land to be ceded on January 1, 2026. This is a form of expropriation under mining law. The Saxon Mining Authority granted the application. The owner took legal action against this.
In December, the landowner failed with a lawsuit before the Saxon Higher Administrative Court (OVG). Among other things, the OVG argued that the public interest in the unrestricted maintenance of the power supply from the two power plants, for which there was no adequate coal replacement supply, outweighed the interests asserted by the applicant.
The Nochten opencast lignite mine has been in operation since 1968 and the lignite extracted is used to generate electricity in the Boxberg and Schwarze Pumpe power plants.
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