LNG off Rügen: An island in turmoil

The German Environmental Aid (DUH) also complains that a terminal and, above all, the planned pipeline would have a negative impact on the environment. “That would be the death knell for this part of the Baltic Sea,” says Constantin Zerger, Head of Energy and Climate Protection at DUH. The pipeline, for which an approval process is already underway, would be built in an “already totally contaminated and half-destroyed part of the Baltic Sea”. It would cross several nature and bird sanctuaries, such as the western Baltic herring spawning area. “It’s already endangered anyway,” says Zerger. In recent years, herring catch quotas have been reduced further and further to allow stocks to recover. Exactly there is to be built now.

But Förster has another thought on his mind: What if such a system is attacked and blown up? It doesn’t matter whether she comes to Sellin or Mukran. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s here or there or on the high seas five kilometers further out. That doesn’t suit our region,” she says. Förster wrote a letter to Federal President Frank Walter Steinmeier with the appeal to respect the will of the people. “We are a majority and we don’t want that.”

So it’s not just about spawning stocks and noise pollution on Rügen. It’s also about democracy. “We no longer feel that we are being taken along in a democracy,” says Reinhard Liedtke. He and his mayoral colleagues have approached the Federal Ministry of Economics and Minister Habeck several times. “Think about it, you write thick letters and don’t get any answers at all? This is a mess.”

And then suddenly another ship approached, this time a working platform. It was a Sunday in mid-March, a concert was being played on the pier and the flute was playing. That’s how Mayor Liedtke tells it. “Then you have a nice look out there at the water, then a big pot is going there,” he says, exactly where the terminal should be, with the cranes clearly visible. His thought: “Yes, tell me, is it still okay?”