Earth Day: CFL Installs Beehives Near Pfaffenthal-Kirchberg Funicular

Luxembourg's national railway company, the CFL, has reported on its actions undertaken in the context of Earth Day, an international event celebrated each year on 22 April.

Among its Earth Day actions this year, the CFL has welcomed four beehives operated by the Honapi family structure on land located near the funicular of the Pfaffenthal-Kirchberg railway stop (Luxembourg-Troisvierges-Gouvy line). This has been carried out in collaboration with the Nature and Forest Agency (ANF) and the forestry administration of the City of Luxembourg.

According to the CFL, these hives contribute to the pressing need to preserve bees while promoting the local and organic honey industry. Essential to our ecosystem and food security through their pollination action, which leads to the birth and proliferation of flora in particular, bees are seeing their population weakened due to climate change, the use of pesticides, the decline of biodiversity and even the harm caused by Varroa (parasitic) mites and Asian hornets.

With the City of Luxembourg being a municipality without pesticides and the site concerned bordered by acacia trees, the approximately 50 to 60,000 bees per hive can find favourable terrain for the manufacture of a product with numerous health benefits, added the CFL.

Also as part of Earth Day, on Monday 22 April 2024, the CFL offered visitors and users of Luxembourg Railway Station (Gare de Luxembourg) a moment of exchange and awareness-raising in collaboration with the following four organisations, who were present on-site from 12:00 to 18:00: Environment & Sustainability Education Luxembourg (ESE), with interactive games on climate change and the (over)consumption of natural resources and energy; Shime, raising awareness about the environmental impact of cigarette butts; CELL (Citizens for Ecological Learning and Living), raising awareness about the climate and the biodiversity crisis; Youth4Planet Luxembourg, with their "CreatiVelo", an educational cargo bicycle presenting films and stories on sustainability.

The CFL also described Earth Day as an opportunity to question certain human activities such as individual transport. The CFL Group reported that it promotes "efficient" and "environmentally friendly" multimodal mobility - an approach which attracted 28.7 million passengers in 2023. According to the CFL, this record figure demonstrates that the train represents an alternative and an effective complement to individual transport which can be easily combined with other means of public transport as well as soft and active mobility.

As indicated in the National Mobility Plan 2035 (PNM2035), outside of Luxembourg City, 60% of residents live less than ten minutes by bicycle from a CFL station. This is an additional reason why the CFL continues to deploy its bicycle strategy to further facilitate this combination with the train.