Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland

History

The BUND was founded on 20 July 1975, as a federation of already existing regional groups. The BUND's co-founders were wildlife filmmaker Horst Stern, Frankfurt Zoological Society leader Bernhard Grzimek, politician Herbert Gruhl (CDU, ödp), conductor Enoch zu Guttenberg, forest conservationist Hubert Weinzierl and 16 others including Bodo Manstein and Gerhard Thielcke.

The original name "Bund für Natur- und Umweltschutz Deutschland" (BNUD) was changed in 1977 for better readability.

In 1989 the BUND became a member of Friends of the Earth International.

In 1990 five Associations were founded in East Germany.

BUND was founding member of the Berlin Energy Table which successfully pushed for a Referendum on the recommunalization of energy supply in Berlin in 2013. The referendum however failed to obtain a sufficient number of yes votes despite a strong majority amongst those that did vote.

BUND foundations

Since 2005, the BUND federal association has been supported by the non-profit BUNDstiftung, based in Schwerin. The foundation started with a capital of €50,000 and, thanks to donations, endowments, inheritances and loans from donors, had accumulated €3 million ten years after its establishment. The foundation supports large-scale projects such as the work on the Green Belt, the floodplain forests on the Middle Elbe (Hohe Garbe) and the Goitzsche wilderness near Bitterfeld.

Many of the legally independent BUND regional associations have also set up non-profit foundations for similar purposes. The initial capital comes partly from their own reserves and partly from compensation payments for major construction projects. The foundations operate legally independently of the BUND associations; BUND activists are often involved in the management of the foundations (including in leading roles).

The foundations by date of establishment:

Memberships and cooperation's

BUND is a member of numerous associations and organisations, including:

Friends of the Earth Europe and International, since 1989 as the German section of the European Environmental Network

Deutscher Naturschutzring, the umbrella organisation of German environmental and nature conservation associations

Attac, a network critical of globalisation

Criticism

The BUND has been accused on several occasions of prematurely withdrawing lawsuits against construction projects that threaten nature due to financial advantages. For example, Der Spiegel accused the organisation of "indulgence trading" for the first time in 1997. In 1996, following a donation of 7 million German marks from VEAG for a specific purpose, BUND Thuringia dropped a lawsuit against the Goldisthal pumped storage station. According to BUND, the lawsuit had little chance of success, but the Thuringia regional association remained critical of the storage station from a nature conservation perspective. The money was used to establish the David Nature Foundation. In addition to Der Spiegel, the NDR and the magazine Panorama criticised concessions made by BUND and other environmental associations in exchange for financial compensation, once again describing them as "indulgences" and "barter deals". In 2006, for example, BUND Lower Saxony (together with the WWF) withdrew a lawsuit against the planned deepening of the Ems for the transfer of cruise ships after a settlement was reached to pay 9 million euros into a newly created special fund, the Emsfond. A newly created six-member committee, which includes one permanent member from BUND, decides how these funds are to be used for projects in the Ems-Dollart region. In 2008, BUND Schleswig-Holstein ended legal proceedings against the expansion of Lübeck Airport after compensation payments were negotiated for a nature conservation foundation for the Grönauer Heide. In 2011, BUND Lower Saxony withdrew a lawsuit against the planned offshore wind farm Nordergründe off Wangerooge after a settlement was reached to pay around 800,000 euros, which would later be transferred to a special-purpose fund administered by BUND. One of the co-founders of the association, Enoch zu Guttenberg, justified his resignation in May 2012 on the grounds, among other things, that he suspected the BUND of being corrupt. He was convinced that financial gain was the main motive behind the BUND's withdrawal of its lawsuits against the wind farm in Nordergründe and the deepening of the Elbe, in return for which it received foundation funds from the operators. He also rejected what he considered to be landscape-destroying wind turbines outside built-up areas. He claimed that the BUND had failed to achieve its goal of protecting nature.

The BUND repeatedly rejected the allegations of bribery, stating that the reached settlements had led to more environmentally friendly plans. Furthermore, settlements involving money only accounted for a minimal proportion of the BUND's class action lawsuits. The organisation fundamentally supports the expansion of renewable energies and only takes legal action against obvious planning errors in individual cases. In the case of the Nordergründe wind farm, in addition to a lower number of turbines, significantly reduced environmental impacts and extensive monitoring measures for the effects on bird migration had been achieved. Even for the – unrealised – airport expansion in Lübeck, a level of mitigation and compensation measures had been negotiated that could never have been achieved through legal action.