The expert unit FARN – “ Fachstelle Radikalisierungsprävention und Engagement im Naturschutz“– was founded by German Naturefriends together with their youth organisation in October 2017. FARN persues the goal of investigating and explaining the historical and current connections between nature and environmental protection and extreme right-wing tendencies. In the historic point of view, the environmental movement is not consistently left-wing or progressive, but influenced by anti-modern, anti-democratic and racist as well as anti-Semitic traditions.

This is again relevant today: right-wing enemies of democracy are deliberately trying to gain a foothold in the pre-political sphere. One of these areas is the protection of nature and the environment. Here they find many opportunities to occupy discourses and – above all, but not only – to infiltrate structures in rural areas. Camouflaged as esotericism, as a lifestyle close to nature or animal well-being, attempts are made to radicalise new target groups. FARN counteracts this with specific educational work.