Environment Minister Glauber honours 7 golf courses
“We are grateful that there are flowering pact partners who are spreading our mission of preserving biodiversity.” With these words, Bavaria’s Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber emphasized the importance of the Blooming Alliance with the Bavarian Golf Association. As part of the first joint day of the Blooming Alliance at the Bavarian GC Zollmühle Glauber also honoured seven golf courses for their commitment to promoting biodiversity.
Golf as a partner with initial spark
“We immediately found a good working relationship with the Bavarian Golf Association,” emphasized Glauber. An assessment that is also shared by the Bavarian Golf Association: “It’s really nice for us to see that the Blooming Pact, whose first partner we were in 2020, is becoming something big,” summarized Arno Malte Uhlig, President of the Bavarian Golf Association. In the meantime, the Bavarian Beekeepers Association, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, the Bavarian Association of Municipalities and the Bavarian Association of Cities are also members of the Blühpakt Alliance.
“Golf is part of the nature, and we are aware of this responsibility,” explained the managing director of the Bavarian Golf Association, Heidrun Klump. “The appeal of golf is that you encounter so many different structural elements on a round of golf. Of course, that also means that we offer a lot of living space away from the fairways.”
This is another reason why it is very gratifying that so many golf courses are now involved in the Bavarian Blooming Pact . As part of the Blooming Pact, the state association for bird protection supports the golf courses with an initial consultation, which is financed 50 percent by the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment and 50 percent by the Bavarian Golf Association. In the case of golf courses, the support from the state association for bird protection has also been received positively. “There is always room for improvement,” said Stefanie Almer, Managing Director of GC Hohenpähl, summing up the results of the consultation. “We have expanded the deadwood areas and have learned something new by mowing in sections”, states Daniel Weischedel, head greenkeeper of the Allgäuer-Golf- und Land-Club .
Initial skepticism about golf
Two years after the start of the Blooming Alliance, the summary of all those involved is very positive. According to Thorsten Faithr, the cooperation with golf was not without controversy internally. “What do they want with the golfers, is that greenwashing?” we were asked. “We got to know you as an alliance partner who gets down to business, who doesn’t ask for money, but tries to become even better. You are really doing a great job!”
Seven Excellent Clubs
A compliment that the following seven award-winning courses also see as motivation: GC Erding-Grünbach, GC Zollmühle, GC Altötting-Burghausen, GC Isarwinkel, Allgäuer Golf- und Landclub, GC Hohenpähl.
