Gerasdorf residents in a rage

Citizens in a rage:Concrete desert instead of natural meadow?

The future of the protected animals is uncertain, the approval process is still ongoing.(Bild: zVg, zVg)

96 hectares of green space with rare plants, kingfishers buzzing in the air and, above all, the subsoil has it all: in Gerasdorf in the Weinviertel region, a population of field hamsters dug out their widely ramified home. Conservationists are not giving up their resistance to the plans of an investor who wants to build warehouses there. 

The time bomb for the strictly protected animals has been ticking for two years. "When we found out that a company was planning to seal 73 hectares of this natural oasis and build warehouses, we fought with all our might against this monster project," said local resident Romana Böhm desperately to "Tierecke". "We have been trying in vain for more than two years to wake the environmental authorities from their deep sleep," she says, speaking on behalf of numerous other conservationists.

What is behind the project
Specifically, an international investor wants to expand the municipality's logistics park by merging plots of land in the previously untouched hamster habitat - but in between lies a bathing pond and quiet settlement.

"Concreting over olé, goodbye hamsters": an environmental impact assessment only just failed when it was submitted, but it would be mandatory under current legislation.

Romana Böhm, Anrainerin

The project applicant is a Dutch company that is not unknown: Active throughout Europe - its focus is on logistics facilities - it also made it into the top 10 negative list of the "Austria's concrete treasures" campaign in the current Greenpeace vote on Austria's most negligent soil sealing projects with a similar project in St. Pölten.

What the Lower Austrian nature conservation department says
"Why is the reaction to species protection issues in Austria so sluggish?" Böhm is annoyed and alludes to a very similar case of the "invasion of a wagon castle" at the gopher habitat near the local bathing pond two months ago, where the reaction was also only made after a lot of publicity.

When asked by the "Krone", the responsible department for environmental protection of the provincial government put off the official background: "A species protection examination can only take place when all the documents are complete" - which is not the case. A comforting final sentence: However, both the public prosecutor's office and the district authority have been informed . . .