Reuter has repeatedly spent the night in shelters in the Siebengebirge and the Wahner Heide, made fires and used closed paths. The Cologne native reported on this on his YouTube channel "Outdoor with Sebastian", which has over 50,000 subscribers. Now he has received the bill from the Rhein-Sieg district. He is to pay a fine of 10,480.15 Euro for numerous violations of the regulatory ordinance on the Siebengebirge nature reserve and the Wahner Heide landscape plan. The district accuses him of having acted intentionally and of using his channel to encourage subscribers to imitate him.

Reuter had already received a hearing sheet at the end of 2021, but on the advice of his lawyer he did not respond, as he told the GA. Meticulously, four months later, the Office for Environmental Protection and Nature Conservation listed a total of 22 violations in six videos of evidence in its fine notice of 21 March 2022. Reuter made the matter public in a video released at the end of June, which has so far racked up almost 69,000 views.

The Cologne native started "running", as he calls his hobby, when he was 27. He weighed 152 kilograms at the time. In the beginning, it was 15 minutes in one direction and 15 minutes back. Now he walks well over 100 kilometres at a stretch. His record was set on a 150-kilometre hike in 23.40 hours from Cologne to Koblenz and back to Bad Honnef. Since 2009, Reuter has hiked well over 80,000 kilometres.

The Cologne native used to be a truck driver, then worked as an electrical engineer. He became unemployed during the Corona crisis. In the meantime, he has infected others with his passion through his channel. For several years, he has been editing his walks and uploading them to YouTube. Tens of thousands of people watch his videos there. Many are hikers themselves.

Reuter feels particularly at home on the Rhine between Cologne and Koblenz, on the Moselle or in the Siebengebirge. When he caught sight of the Drachenfels during his mammoth march at the end of February 2021, he raved in his video: "My heart swells here." Tours into or through the Siebengebirge can be found again and again on his channel. For example, the videos "66 km hike in the Siebengebirge", "50 km hike with overnight stay in the Siebengebirge" or "7 at one go: 66 km march from Cologne through the Siebengebirge" can be seen there.

The staff of the Rhein-Sieg district watched these videos, meticulously listed the violations in the Siebengebirge and in the Wahner Heide over a period of two years and listed them in the fine notice. For example, Reuter is accused of entering the closed Ofenkaulen in spring 2019. In the summer of 2019, he had spent the night in the Hirschberghütte. In autumn 2019, he had camped at the Annahütte, lit and maintained fires, removed waste in the form of ashes, wantonly disturbed wildlife, in this case a fire salamander, and used prohibited paths.

In May 2021, he had again camped at the Mäcki hut, had also set fires and had launched and landed an aircraft, a drone. In June 2021, he had been illegally on the Wolkenburg. Reuter had also camped, and lit and maintained fires in the Wahner Heide in the summer of 2021.

Making fires is particularly expensive for extreme hikers, as the penalty notices prove. In the Siebengebirge it costs 1200 Euro, in the Wahner Heide 600 Euro. Entering the Ofenkaulen several times also costs 500 Euro each time, and unauthorised entry into the Ofenkaulen aerial gallery costs 1000 Euro.

Overnight stays in the refuges are more expensive than in a luxury hotel at 300 Euro each. Wilfully disturbing a fire salamander and a spider is charged 200 Euro. Unauthorised use of a path to the Ofenkaulen and to the Wolkenburg also costs 110 Euro.

At a personal appointment with a case officer from the Office for Environmental Protection and Nature Conservation, Reuter was offered the prospect of a reduction of the fine by 7500 Euro if he showed insight and remorse. "But how are you supposed to show insight and remorse when you spend the night in a refuge, exhausted, after a 50-kilometre hike?" asks the 40-year-old. He had revised a video, but this was not enough for the authorities.

He had also offered to meet with a staff member of the authority on site to make an educational video on the subject of nature conservation. However, this was not accepted. Instead, he said, his outreach and role model function had been pointed out. "I would have liked to use my outreach to advocate for environmental protection in the Siebengebirge," he says.

Reuter is surprised that no "hater" reported him, but that the authority's staff apparently searched for violations in videos themselves. In the meantime, he is prepared to pay the fine, although he has not yet completely given up hope of an amicable solution.

He does not want to get a lawyer involved because he assumes that the authority has strictly followed the rules in determining the violations and the fines and that the matter would then become even more expensive for him. "I am tired of bending the knee and showing the required insight and remorse," he says. He is not one of those people who run riot in the forest, let their dogs run loose or dump their rubbish, he adds. "But it also can't be that you have to read ordinances before you enter a forest.“

When asked, the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis said that fine proceedings were generally not handled via the press. "This only concerns the district and the person concerned. This is also a matter of data protection," said Antonius Nolden from the press office.

Sebastian Reuter, he said, runs a YouTube channel and has reported in detail about his violations of nature conservation requirements in the Siebengebirge nature reserve. "He has therefore not only acted intentionally, but also serves his followers or viewers and thus generates income. Through his videos, he encourages imitation. This explains the amount of the possible fine," Nolden said. The Rhein-Sieg district had made Reuter clear offers to reduce the amount of the fine. "However, Mr Reuter did not respond to these offers."

Original text: Hansjürgen Melzer

Translation: Mareike Graepel