Sports ecology

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The sports Ecology deals with the effects of the sports operation on nature and the environment.

Environmental principles of the German Sports Confederation

Sport, exercise and play are essential elements of human existence. Nature and the environment are the foundations of life. Caring for and maintaining them is also the responsibility of sport. It perceives them in accordance with Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and in accordance with the commitment to which the International Olympic Committee has committed itself.

Sport in sports facilities and in the great outdoors is an essential prerequisite for physical performance, offers compensation for a lack of exercise, promotes societal and social joie de vivre and is an element of fulfilling leisure time, especially for young people.

Our society today puts excessive demands on nature and the environment. Globally, the negative factors go far beyond the influence of sport. However, the effects on air, water and landscape also affect sport. It therefore has a vested interest in contributing to general environmental protection.

For the German Sports Confederation , it is an important goal to permanently secure the basis of life and thus the prerequisites for a wide range of sports in nature and landscape. Sports demands are based on ensuring that the same opportunities are retained for future generations.

Landscape consumption

All sports facilities require space and thus use up the landscape. In 1921 there was only one sports field for every 80,000 inhabitants . In 1929 Carl Diem presented a sports field law in which every inhabitant should be given a 3 m² sports area. This value was far below the calculations of other scientists who demanded up to 5 m² per capita. However, Diem's ​​bill was not passed at the time.

It was only with the economic rise after the Second World War that civilization diseases began to appear due to a lack of exercise, and this drew attention to the lack of suitable sports areas. In 1960, the German Olympic Society finally adopted the Golden Plan , which was based on Diem's ​​required 3 m² per capita. From then on the federal and state governments spent 17.4 billion marks until 1975.

Today there are around 80,000 sports fields and sports halls in Germany. Their total area is about 230 km².

On the other hand, it is difficult to quantify the areas that are used by non-facility-related sports. These include in particular water sports and winter sports, for which not only the infrastructure to be provided must be taken into account, but also the entire landscape that is used for the duration of use.

In the case of system-based sports, golf courses in particular are criticized for their high space consumption. For an average golf course with 18 holes including infrastructural facilities (parking lot, clubhouse), 60 to 80 hectares of space are calculated. With currently around 700 golf courses in Germany (around a third of which have fewer than 18 holes), the total consumption is around 400 km². However, it must be taken into account that around 75% of the area remains natural (see golf course, ecological aspects ).

Impairments to habitats and communities

Sports activities change nature and the landscape and impair species and communities. Development projects in sensitive landscape areas are particularly prone to conflict, e.g. B. Ascent aids or leveling work when building slopes. These interventions can irreparably damage the sensitive ecology, the surfaces are then exposed to erosion without protection.

The construction of a golf course can also be a significant intervention in nature , for example by excavating or filling the ground to model the terrain. Incorrectly executed construction work can lead to irreversible compaction of the soil. Like the installation of unsuitable drainage systems, this can negatively affect the groundwater balance in the area.

Activities that are not in accordance with statutory provisions, such as: B. Driving on bodies of water during breeding seasons or skiing off-piste. These sporting activities can cause birds to leave their brood, the young trees die, or the wild species are frightened - problems that also occur in sports that are considered to be close to nature, such as orienteering , kite flying or mountaineering .

Another aspect is the increasing temporal expansion of use. The ski season is extended further forwards and backwards due to ski cannons. In addition, the pastures are increasingly used for hiking and mountain biking . The time in which certain sports are practiced often coincides with the time of particularly sensitive life processes. Cross-country skiing bothers the capercaillie at the end of winter, and kayaking is the breeding season for waterfowl when the snow melts .

environmental pollution

In addition to using natural resources, getting there is also an ecological problem. The visitors travel by different means of transport such as cars or motorcycles and need a certain infrastructure for this. In addition, pollutants are emitted. Since many sports competitions are mass events, the burden of waste should not be ignored either. However, these problems are not specific to sports.

The materials used in the construction of sports facilities can also be problematic. For example, poisonous synthetic materials are sometimes used for the synthetic surfaces of the various tartan tracks. In North Rhine-Westphalia in particular, dioxin-contaminated slag from former copper smelters was used for the construction of sports facilities until 1991.

Athletes need a lot of equipment in order to practice their sport. In Germany there are 26 million club athletes and another 10 million estimated non-organized sports enthusiasts. These 36 million athletes each need several pieces of equipment that may be replaced every year. In Germany, for example, 20 million pairs of sports shoes are sold every year, 25 million tennis balls, 4.8 million golf balls and 670,000 pairs of skis.

causes

Over the years, sport has become a popular activity for an increasingly large group of people. In the past it was only the richer classes who could afford to invest time and money in a sport, today many more people go on a sport holiday or integrate sport into their everyday lives. More and more systems are being built for this and ever larger areas are required.

In today's working world, shorter working hours have become established. So now surpasses time the working hours , and the mobility is also significantly higher than before. The work that has become physically easier can also result in a lack of adequate exercise.

Possible solutions

Trips to the surrounding area can be reduced if attractive sports facilities are set up in the large urban centers .

Some sports have been further developed to minimize environmental impact. Over the course of a few years, classic golf has been joined by the less landscape- consuming swing golf variant .

The sports associations are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that they are advising their activists on how to avoid or minimize environmental damage.

Efforts are being made to enable athletes to use scarce natural spaces and areas in which there are endangered species by means of special control concepts. There are many sports that are carried out in a nature-friendly way by imposing certain regulations and restrictions instead of in a way that destroys nature. However, particularly endangered areas are completely closed to sport and leisure.

On the other hand, there are regions that live almost entirely from tourism. In Austria, for example, there is hardly a job in many areas that does not depend in one form or another on tourists who come to ski. A far-reaching ban on sports therefore does not appear to be enforceable, so a reasonable compromise should be sought in each individual case.

literature

Portal: Sports Science  - Overview of Wikipedia content on Sports Science
  • Fritz Seewald, Elvira Kronbichler, Stefan Großering: Sports ecology. An introduction to the relationship between sport and nature. UTB, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 978-3-825-22027-3
  • Peter Sloterdijk: "You have to change your life!" Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2009, ISBN 3518462105

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