Nature and environmental protection: More official procedures
politics
There are more and more official proceedings in Salzburg on nature conservation and environmental protection issues, as reported by the state environmental prosecutor in their current annual report. The number of major environmental impact assessments (EIAs), on the other hand, has declined.
The number of nature conservation procedures has increased from 300 to currently 400 cases per year since 2019. New forest roads, buildings in landscape protection areas and other interventions in biotopes, especially in Flachgau, Tennengau and Pongau are the reason for the high number of approval procedures.
LUA criticism: “Understanding of nature is missing”
However, politics and business often lack an understanding of nature, criticized state environmental attorney Gishild Schaufler: “Nobody complains when the defense attorney represents their client. Nobody complains when the employee representatives represent the employees and that’s why I ask myself why it is so unacceptable that the environmental lawyers do their job,” criticizes Schaufler.
“Projects get better with LUA”
Support comes from environmental protection officer Martina Berthold (Die Grünen). The LUA is also an advocacy group: “That’s their job, it’s also a fact that not everything they fight for can be implemented. But she has a good basis and she fights to ensure that projects also get better.” There will always be a certain tension between environmental protection and the switch to new technologies.
Whether nature, species and climate protection is successful in Salzburg ultimately decides on the future of everyone, adds State Environmental Attorney Schaufler, the LUA has examined more than 800 procedures.