Report: Saxony CDU wants to ban solar installations in forests

According to media reports, Saxony's CDU is planning to push for a nationwide ban on deforestation for the construction of solar power plants. Saxony's Christian Socialists are planning a corresponding motion at the CDU party conference in Stuttgart at the end of February, Saxony's Environment Minister Georg-Ludwig von Breitenbuch told the "Sächsische Zeitung" and the "Leipziger Volkszeitung".

According to Breitenbuch's ministry, the clearing of six forest areas in Saxony for permanent use for solar power generation has been approved by the responsible forestry authorities in recent years. This was revealed in an answer from the Saxon Ministry of the Environment to a small question from CDU member of state parliament Andreas Heinz in August last year. The permits relate to a forest area of around 35 hectares.

Law provides for fundamental priority for renewable energies

According to this, there had been twelve applications for photovoltaic projects on forest areas in Saxony up to this point - the majority of them on private land. An amendment to the Renewable Energy Act under the then coalition government had declared the construction of renewable energy plants to be in the "overriding public interest" and stipulated that their construction had "fundamental priority" when weighing up decisions on nature conservation and landscape protection. However, developers of such plants must plant compensatory areas with new trees.

The Saxon Greens had already launched an initiative in the Saxon state parliament last year to ban the conversion of forest areas for photovoltaic plants.