Berlin - Germany's cash-strapped government is paying €225 000 euros (about R1,8-million) to build a tunnel to help frogs avoid the perils of a busy road, officials said on Monday.
Ruediger Zech, a local council spokesperson in the Berlin district of Reinickendorf, said the project would allow native varieties of toads, frogs and other amphibians to reach a nearby lake safely when they spawn in the spring.
Previously the creatures had been carried across the road in buckets by volunteers from nature protection groups.
The foreign ministry, headed by Green Party member Joschka Fischer, is funding construction of the tunnel near a training centre for diplomats on the outskirts of Berlin.
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A foreign ministry spokesperson said the tunnel was part of a package of environmental measures agreed when the ministry took over the Villa Borsig, a country house located in a nature protection area in the north of Berlin.
The German government is expected to breach European Union budget deficit limits for a third year in a row in 2004.
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