Our FMM Airport bee colonies have found a home in a specially built bee hut. This was set up on the access road to the terminal and from there the busy bees swarm over the airport grounds every day. Right next door is an insect hotel, which was built by the children of our airport employees in a joint project.
In recent years, flower meadows and flower strips have been planted on green areas along our terminal access road, where a variety of insects, beetles and butterflies now find food. After all, many industrious animals help us as pollinators and make an important contribution to species and nature conservation. The insect hotels help them to nest and then overwinter.
As a great side effect, our employees can look forward to healthy FMM honey. This is tested for harmful substances by a laboratory. This means that Memmingen will be one of the ADV airports with bee colonies that have their air quality tested. A bee colony “produces” – also with the help of the beekeeper – an average of 20 to 30 kilograms of honey per year.
At Memmingen Airport, we are actively committed to nature conservation. We therefore promote biodiversity and prevent wildlife strikes in particular.
To this end, we practise active wildlife management with the following measures:
We implement long grass management in accordance with a DAVVL biotope report, which was updated in 2023, and also repeatedly test alternatives such as short grass or rough pasture on specially created trial areas. When mowing the land, attention must also be paid to the management of the outer areas and the breeding status of the animals. The advantage of long grass is that the bird of prey cannot see its prey due to the long grass and dense grass cover. This makes the area uninteresting for them and they go in search of prey outside the airport. In spring, our employees mow up to 50 hectares of grass along the security fence. The grass is collected by the company Bitzer, Hawangen, and used in their biogas plant. We purchase the gas produced there again via Airport Energie Management GmbH – as part of a sustainable cycle. From spring to autumn, smaller areas (approx. 10 hectares) are mowed regularly, leaving the grass lying down. In autumn, the entire area (approx. 140 hectares) is mulched. Small, chopped green waste is left lying around and thus serves as a natural fertiliser. This mulch layer can thus improve the soil quality.
Lizards can look forward to an elaborately designed habitat in the south of the airport site. A lizard habitat was created on an area of around 8,000 m². Our aim was to provide the lizards with a safe and cosy habitat that meets their natural needs. Among other things, we excavated depressions in the ground and loosely filled them with sand and stones. Piles of dead wood and rootstocks have also been added as shelter. Chunks of concrete are used as rock substitutes, so no rock had to be bought and no concrete disposed of.
Lizards also find shelter on a specially constructed lizard wall near our petrol depot.
In the course of a construction project and an intervention in nature and landscape, Memmingen Airport, as the project sponsor, must provide “compensation” in the form of a compensatory measure in the same natural area. If areas are sealed during the expansion of the runway, a compensation area is used to restore a biological balance. Our airport therefore has numerous compensation areas, most of which we have realised with the land agency of the KulturLandschaft Günztal Foundation.
In general, there is close cooperation and good networking with the forestry and operations community, nature conservation authorities, landscape conservation organisations, the district office and the municipalities. For example, the airport owns a meadow orchard of around 0.4 hectares, which is maintained by the voluntary nature conservation organisation.
