The lights will go out in December: funding cuts spell the end for the environmental library

Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar: Zum deutschen Artikel.

It has actually been closed since 26 March. However, the Leipzig Environmental Library is now reopening for a further three months before closing its doors for good at the end of the year. Residents of Leipzig can make use of this free service until the end of the year, Tuesdays to Thursdays from 12:00 to 17:00. After that, Ökolöwe e.V. will have to close the Environmental Library.

“We’re delighted that the Environmental Library can open once more. At the same time, it is bitterly disappointing that we already know today: by the end of the year, we will have to close our doors for good,” says Nico Singer, managing director of Ökolöwe e.V.

“For six years, we have kept the service running on a skeleton staff despite our funding being halved. Now our financial and staffing resources have been exhausted.”

An important part of the Peaceful Revolution

For almost 40 years, the Environmental Library has been a mainstay of environmental education in Leipzig. Leipzig City Council halved its funding in 2020. Since then, the association has kept the service running with significantly fewer staff and financial resources.

In fact, the history of the Environmental Library dates back to the pre-revolutionary year of 1988, when it was founded by the Environmental Protection Working Group at the Leipzig Youth Ministry. It exemplifies the strong role played by the environmental movement within the context of the citizens’ movement and the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig, which was, after all, also directed against the environmental destruction surrounding Leipzig – a city completely choked with soot and threatened by coal mining. The people of Leipzig also demonstrated against this in 1989: Put an end to this reckless environmental destruction.

Subsequently, the Leipzig Ökolöwe was founded, emerging from this strand of the citizens’ movement. It took over the Environmental Library and moved it to the House of Democracy, where both have been based since 1990.

A cut with consequences

This made the city council’s decision in 2020 to halve the Environmental Library’s funding all the more bitter. A move that has since been provisionally offset by donations. But now the momentum has run out. The Ökolöwe must face the prospect of closing this unique library.

“Charitable work needs reliable funding. We cannot permanently make up for a lack of public funding through donations,” says Nico Singer. “The Environmental Library shows what happens when funding is insufficient over the years: a service can no longer be developed further and must eventually close.”

Further cuts loom

Ökolöwe e.V. is now also viewing the draft of Leipzig’s 2027/2028 two-year budget with concern. This is because it now provides for further cuts of around 600,000 euros to nature conservation and environmental protection projects. The city must make drastic savings. And since environmental activism is regarded as a ‘voluntary task’ from the perspective of federal German politics, this now also threatens to undermine the financial basis of Leipzig’s environmental organisations. In this way, the federal government’s climate- and environment-hostile policies are being imposed on local authorities through the back door.

“Leipzig needs dedicated environmental work. Especially now, when the climate crisis and species extinction are becoming increasingly apparent, the city council must not cut funding for nature and environmental protection projects. Otherwise, services that Leipzig urgently needs will disappear,” warns Singer.

Ökolöwe e.V. is now inviting all Leipzig residents to visit the environmental library once more in the remaining months and make use of its free services. More than 7,000 items on the environment and sustainability are available to borrow – ranging from novels, non-fiction and specialist literature to guidebooks, games and audio stories.