The Deisterfreunde are a classic mountain bike community association. They look after their trails, offer children's training sessions and organize local races. It is clear that the members want to make a positive contribution and demonstrate responsibility. They also regularly carry out clean-up campaigns and forest walks with a forest warden or environmental expert. They take refugees on the trails and have a project to make para-mountain biking possible.

The trails that the Deisterfreunde have created since 2012 have been re-approved every two years. It was also not a problem that they did not restore a trail exactly the same after it had been repeatedly destroyed by fallen and felled trees. Association chairman Mark Wolf explains to Ride: "It was planned from the outset that we would also be allowed to develop the trails further." He emphasizes that the operating permit has been extended several times with all extensions

Suddenly trail extensions are a problem

However, the environmental department of the Hanover region now sees the extensions as an encroachment on nature, for which the Deisterfreunde would have to pay compensation and which can no longer be approved. The authority's spokesman, Philipp Westphal, explains: "It's not about slight adjustments to the route, but about some serious changes. Around twice as many obstacles have been created as agreed. For the construction and maintenance of these obstacles, massive excavations were also made in the forest, which were not agreed." These were only identified in 2023. The fact that permission was repeatedly granted before then does not change the fact that the excavations were illegal.

Mark Wolf reacted angrily to such statements. It is a lie that they did not report their conversions and that the authorities had no knowledge of modifications, which official documents already documented in 2015. What has changed is that a new person responsible in the environmental department is in charge. "The mountain bikers are now being led through the ring as the guilty parties." Wolf also points out the good cooperation with the district forester. 

This is immortalized in the YouTube magazine STRG_F - which is backed by ARD and ZDF. A team visited the Deister 2022 - interestingly at the invitation of the forester of another district. He couldn't get close to the bikers, perhaps the journalists could "confront the people concerned", the reporter reads from the letter. He does so, and the report clearly shows the difference it makes whether there are legal trails in a forest or not.

Trailforks shows dozens of trails in the Deister, none of which have been created legally. The only exception: the forest area where the Deisterfreunde are active. There are the three trails approved in 2012 and nothing else. The forester in charge praises the cooperation to the skies and advises his colleagues: "They need to look inside themselves and weigh up what they want."

Lower Saxony State Forests demand 15,000 euros from the Deisterfreunde

The STRG_F report was published in 2022. In 2023, the environmental authority found that the legal routes, which together with the work of the responsible association, keep an entire forest district free of illegal route construction, are a problem for the forest. Among other things, they disturbed the habitat of a wild cat. Mark Wolf comments: "It has settled there in recent years, when our trails were already there, because it obviously finds the trails a good home. With the whole operation. And now our trails have to go! Ten meters away, the wildcat's mortal enemies - the cars - ride on undisturbed on the main road. That shows the objectivity of the argument against us."

The main problem for the Hannover region, however, is the aforementioned expansions. The regional forestry authorities are demanding compensation from the Deisterfreunde; either in the form of nature conservation measures in the forest or by paying 15,000 euros. The Hanover regional administration is backing this demand - also because otherwise an expert would first have to calculate an amount, which would incur further costs.

The Deisterfreunde will also have to bear the costs of dismantling the routes, the permit for which expires on January 31. Together, these two factors add up to an enormous sum for the association, which relies on the work of various volunteers.

The Deisterfreunde firmly reject the demands. They do not accept that they should have to pay compensation for something that was previously approved as a legal part of their activities. Wolf also states: "Five illegal routes have disappeared in the area of our trails. Why isn't that included as a compensation measure?"

The environment department also sees things differently: the three approved trails are a pilot project and were only approved thanks to extensive exemptions from the prohibitions of the landscape conservation area ordinance. In other words, for the environmental authority, the removal of the illegal trails was a prerequisite for the legal ones being allowed to be created in the first place and not the other way around, as the Deisterfreunde see it.

The Deisterfreunde have only been working on the basis of an exemption permit for 12 years, and they are aware of this. "We would have liked to have done away with this sword of Damocles for a long time and have a definitive permit for our routes," says Wolf. Now the opposite is happening and they will have nothing at all from January 1, 2026.

But that is not the end of the story. The Hannover region still wants a legal trail offer on the Deister. You can find out who is to realize this and what the Deisterfreunde have to do with it in part 2. 

 

 

 

 

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