"Zellerberg" construction site, Mehring municipality, district of Trier-Saarburg

Set in very attractive scenery, the Mosel municipality of Mehring was developing a large construction site on a steeply sloping vineyard at the current edge of town. Species protection concerns played a major role due to the presence of bats and common wall lizards.

The concerns were set out with a subsequent explication of a protection strategy (construction period regulation, partial preservation of the vineyard walls, environmental construction supervision in the course of the site clearance, as well as extensive efforts to replace habitats). This was designed as part of the required specialist contribution on species protection in line with § 44 BnatSchG. In association with this, in the course of the processing of the encroachment regulations, specific compensation measures were developed (as far as possible, to be relevant to both species protection, and other protected resources, such as stone embankments, stone walls, open land in mosaic patterns of meadows and raw soils, tree plantations).

igr successfully steered and undertook the creation of replacement habitats (among other things, bat boxes) and the transferring of the common wall lizards, in close cooperation with the local and regional municipalities, the responsible authorities and the participating construction companies.

The success of the measures will be observed and documented in a five-year monitoring programme.

Services provided by igr

  • Specialist contribution on species protection/special species protection investigation (focus bats and reptiles)
  • Species protection implementation strategy
  • Planning and construction management for the creation of replacement habitats for common wall lizards in external compensation areas
  • Undertaking of the lizard transfer
  • Monitoring/observation of the success/efficiency of the lizard transfer
  • Environmental report with expert contributions on encroachment regulations
  • Site development plan
  • Storm water management strategy
  • Traffic noise expert report
  • Surveying
  • Traffic infrastructure
  • Water supply/waste water disposal
  • Construction supervision
  • Project management/developer

Key figures

  • Transfer of over 300 common wall lizards
  • Development of ca. 100 building plots
  • Total area of site development plan: 10.7 ha
  • Area of external compensation measures: ca. 3.2 ha