No Hobby Hunting in the Rüm Hart Biotope!

The Hamburg family Janssen – Andrea and Dr. Dirk Janssen and their adult children Malte and Bilke – has established the «Rüm Hart» family foundation with the statutory purpose of environmental and animal protection, with the aim of creating small biotopes in order to protect the biodiversity found there, particularly from harmful human intervention.

«Rüm Hart» is Frisian and means “big heart” or “generous heart”. In 2017, the family acquired a 1.4-hectare biotope near Osterholz-Scharmbeck in Lower Saxony as a nature monument, in order to create habitat for wild animals there. The beautiful area is characterised by a wet meadow on which a rare species of orchid grows, as well as a small floodplain forest through which the Scharmbecker Bach winds its way. The Janssen family cannot reconcile it with their conscience when hunters enter this biotope and hunt wild animals there..

The friends of animals and nature cannot reconcile it with their ethical convictions when hunters shoot animals dead here.

«Environmental and animal protection are close to the heart of our small family foundation,» explains Dr. Dirk Janssen. «Natural spaces are, as is well known, under threat and in retreat everywhere. Climate change also contributes to the threat to biodiversity. Our motivation is that we – the people alive today – can still make a difference and save biodiversity. The Rüm Hart Foundation we have established enables us to develop and implement our own projects on environmental education and the protection of biodiversity in Hamburg and the surrounding area.» The Frisian motto «Rüm Hart – Klaar Kimming» (“Generous Heart, Clear Horizon”) embodies this founding idea and at the same time alludes to the family’s North German homeland.

The «Rüm Hart» Foundation has acquired a partial area of a specially protected biotope under § 28a NNatG, which also forms part of the landscape conservation area «Oberlauf des Scharmbecker Baches». This area consists of a mosaic of marsh and riparian forests, swamps, reed beds, and nutrient-poor wet meadows.

Hunter erects raised hide in the middle of the biotope

«Three years ago, a hunter erected a metal raised hide on our land for the first time and began practising his ‘trade’. As apparently naïve city dwellers, we were completely taken aback that the hide had simply been put up on our property without any prior contact — and that this is legally permissible. In our view, this is a relic of medieval feudal law!», reports Dr. Dirk Janssen. «I tried to dissuade the hunter from hunting on our land during a phone call, as we wish to leave this area to nature and our foundation’s objectives are fundamentally at odds with hunting. Unfortunately, without success.»

Family applies for hunting exemption

Dr. Janssen subsequently engaged a lawyer to assist the family in obtaining a hunting exemption for the property under hunting law. The family declared, in a sworn affidavit and to the best of their knowledge and conscience, that they reject hunting in general — and on their land in particular — along with the associated injury, mistreatment, and killing of animals. In September 2019, the lawyer submitted an application for a hunting exemption and called on the hunting leaseholder to remove the raised hide. The hunting authority did not respond. However, since the hide had been temporarily removed the previous year, the family initially took no further action.

When the hide was erected again, the Janssens got in touch with the initiative «Zwangsbejagung ade» and sought advice. They subsequently instructed a lawyer again in early summer 2022 to enforce the hunting ban on the biotope. The family now hopes that the animals will soon find peace.