The OVG allowed Tesla to continue deforestation for Gigafactory 4

The Berlin-Brandenburg Supreme Administrative Court (OVG) rejected the complaints of two environmental associations. This means that the American automaker Tesla is allowed to continue cutting trees at the site of the planned Gigafactory 4 in Grünheide near Berlin.

This gives Tesla a green light to continue cutting down trees on a part of the site until the start of the growing season. This decision is not subject to dispute.

The Brandenburg State Environmental Agency has approved the early start of tree felling, but a final permit for the construction of the Giga Berlin has not yet been received.

OVG explained in its reasoning that the legal prerequisites for the early start of the construction of the plant were rightly confirmed. The competent authority should not have waited until March for a period of objections in the framework of public participation, since it had the necessary knowledge to assess the likelihood of project approval.
 

#GigaBerlin
The complaint of the " environmental associations " against TESLA was dismissed ✌👊🍾
Tesla can continue working.🤩👍 pic.twitter.com/7BnoHVIGca

— @GF4Tesla..🏗️🏗️.build #GigaBerlin. (@Gf4Tesla) February 20, 2020

The Brandenburg Green League lawyer Dirk Teßmer said: "We were optimistic in the sense that everything would be different." Today, the Brandenburg Green League, which filed a lawsuit against the early start of construction, proposed a settlement to the American company. They wanted to withdraw their complaint - if Tesla took extensive compensation measures for his interference in nature. For example, 18.6 miles of the highway perimeter should have been planted with hedges from sand and dust storms.

But this attempt failed because the Association for Landscape Conservation and Species Protection in Bavaria (VLAB) refused to withdraw its complaint.

The area on which the forest stands has been designated as an industrial zone about 20 years ago. Plantations are mainly composed of pines.

Oliver Krischer, a member of the parliamentary group of the Bundestag and the Greens, who, among other things, is a member of the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) and the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), criticized the fact that "the pine plantation has turned into a battlefield."

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Featured image: Marcel Münch/Twitter