The Tesla Gigafactory in Grunheide, near Berlin, still hasn’t received final approval. According to the statement of Brandenburg Environment Minister Axel Vogel to rbb At least one report that officials have sought from the company is missing from this Saturday — not all of them of sufficient quality to be legally safe for approval, he said. The minister did not want to give a time forecast for further progress, but given the approaching Christmas season, approval and thus production should not begin this year. At the same time, a significant compensatory measure is underway: service providers have begun planting the last 100 hectares of new forest for Tesla, totaling 294 hectares.

Tesla’s immediate deforestation

36,000 trees per day are currently being planted at a site east of the Tesla factory, announced the Natural Space for Generations (NFG) project, run by a consortium of landlords in the area last week. By the end of January, a total of 150 hectares of new mixed forests are to be planted at such a fast pace. of which 100 hectares are intended to compensate for the clearing Tesla allowed on the site of its German Gigafactory since last February became.

In total, about 156 hectares of industrial pine has been cleared for the Tesla factory so far. The company had previously promised forests three times the area, but was only obliged to provide 294 hectares of new forest. the first part of it, roughly Whole Brandenburg. Spread over 144 hectares, was implemented last spring, explained Martin Zaramowicz from the land agency of the state teslamag.de upon request. Also in 2020, the NfG disposed of an additional 50 hectares of land for its members on behalf of the agency. And in the second week of December, the final run in time began for Tesla with about 600,000 new trees on 100 hectares.

And so it’s almost as important as it is with the Gigafactory. All seedlings should be in the ground before the end of January so they can grow well into the spring, explained according to the message Managing Director of NFG. In the arid region one is “dependent on the water of the winter months”. In addition, the most recent round of afforestation started three weeks late because the first frost we had been waiting for was a long time coming. According to the NFG, Germany’s largest planting machine with a length of eleven meters should help (see photo above).

Forest Upgradation in the vicinity of Gigafactory

While primarily pine trees grew on the Gigafactory site cleared for industrial use, the compensation forest is said to be of high quality. Feather 50 hectares last fall for Tesla According to the NfG the proportion of deciduous trees was about 70 percent, in the new era it should be slightly higher than initial experience. According to Zaramowicz, there are currently no further orders for afforestation beyond the first 294 hectares. However, according to the Brandenburg State Office for Forestry, Tesla has applied for the reclamation of about 130 hectares of pine monoculture near the electric car factory with new deciduous plantations and has received it as a condition.