Planned sale of the Capa Wood: Greens call for a change and back the protest

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Leipzig’s environmental organisations have called for a demonstration at the Kleinmessegelände on Thursday 25 June. They intend to protest there against the planned sale – and consequently the clearing – of the small, 5.7-hectare woodland on Capastraße, which the city intends to use to provide the RB Leipzig football club with space for new training grounds. The Greens, at least, are backing the protest. This was also a topic of discussion on Saturday, 20 June, at the city party conference of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Leipzig at the German Biomass Research Centre.

The focus was on an urgent motion regarding the planned felling on Capastraße, which the members supported by a large majority.

With this motion, the local branch has taken a clear stand against the planned felling of valuable trees and the loss of important green spaces in the heart of the city. The Leipzig Greens view the plans as a further encroachment on the city’s natural environment, which cannot be justified either ecologically or in terms of climate policy.

“The planned tree felling on Capastraße is another step in the wrong direction. Particularly in a growing city like Leipzig, we need every tree and every contiguous green space to provide protection from the heat, to support biodiversity and to enhance the quality of life for local residents. The current temperatures, in particular, highlight this painfully,” explains Martin Meißner, co-spokesperson for the district association. “Whilst other parties remain silent or support the plans, we are currently the only political force consistently opposing them and calling for the preservation of the tree population.”

The members emphasised that urban development must not be pitted against the interests of nature conservation and climate protection. Instead of further tree felling, they said, solutions are needed that focus on preserving existing green spaces.

An amendment

Meanwhile, the Green Party group on the city council has also responded with its own amendment, in which it calls for: “The sub-plots of parcel 2638/35 in the Leipzig district and 715/14 in the Lindenau district (between Capastraße and the fairground on Cottaweg) shall not be sold. The City of Leipzig is committed to the INSEK objective of preserving and promoting the biotope network between the northern and southern floodplain forests (Cottaweg green corridor). The woodland between Capastraße and the fairground on Cottaweg shall not be cleared, and its long-term protection status shall be reviewed.”

Opposition to the administration’s plans to sell off the woodland is also beginning to bear fruit: the proposal from the Land Registry Office to create a sale option for the small woodland is no longer on the agenda for the council meeting on 1 July.

An ignorant council and three residents’ questions

Instead, the agenda for 1 July features no fewer than three residents’ enquiries. These, too, highlight the fact that the proposal from the Property Office contravenes several municipal framework plans. Here, the council has not only completely ignored its own framework provisions – it is also alienating the public through its official disregard.

One of the residents’ enquiries puts it as follows: “With draft resolution VIII-DS-02491, the city administration plans to sell approximately 57,000 m² of woodland and succession area on Capastraße (parcels 2638/35 and 715/14) to Red Bull Betriebsanlagen GmbH for the expansion of the RB training grounds. The proposal states that this area was extensively de-sealed and developed as a natural space around 25 years ago as an officially mandated compensation measure for Development Plan No. 238 (‘Cottaweg/Große Wiese’).

The draft resolution also indicates that plans were in place to strengthen the biotope network at this location. Only recently, the City Council decided that, due to the issues surrounding RB parking spaces and the use of the fairground, an alternative site should be found for the Kleinmesse. Compensatory measures are to be implemented appropriately; ecosystem services are not factored in. This gives the impression that, although solutions were apparently being sought, the plan to clear the woodland here had already been envisaged at the time of the last decision.

Once again, therefore, it is evident that environmental protection is apparently treated as a low priority in a city that has so far been completely ill-prepared for the challenges of climate change. In any case, that is an obvious interpretation. The justification that this is intended to ‘generate revenue’ in the short term is also far-fetched. The destruction of natural habitats is being justified on the grounds that revenue is needed now, whilst future generations will have to bear the consequences of this policy.

What kind of political philosophy underlies this, other than the foreseeable provocation of a major new conflict and the prioritisation of short-term revenue over the preservation of the foundations of life – which is, in itself, a far-fetched notion. So does nature in Leipzig always get the short end of the stick because short-term revenue and prospects are deemed more important than preserving the foundations of life?”

Demonstration on 25 June

The local authority cannot really justify its actions. The responses to the three residents’ enquiries on 1 July are likely to be interesting.

With regard to the planned felling on Capastraße, the Leipzig Alliance of the Greens also announced on Saturday that they would continue to maintain political and public pressure and work together to campaign for the preservation of the affected trees.

“We are delighted about the broad alliance of environmental organisations and, together with them, we are calling on our members and all residents of this city to come to the Kleinmesse at 6 pm on 25 June 2026 to demonstrate with us against the deforestation plans and in support of the forest,” said Petra Čagalj Sejdi, co-spokesperson for the district association.