No man's land, seized by nature
Already before the Iron Curtain was pulled down, biological studies of the border area proved a rich diversity of plant and animal species along the border line.
In November 1989 Bund Naturschutz, the Bavarian branch of BUND (Bund für Umwelt- und Naturschutz Deutschland, Friends of the Earth Germany), organised a meeting of German nature conservationists from East and West to preserve the former Inner German border as an extraordinary habitat line throughout Germany. The participants developed the idea of a Green Belt throughout Germany and presented a resolution for the protection of this unique ecological network. Years of hard struggle for this aim followed.
Right from the start the Green Belt was not only the first nationwide nature conservation project but a unique natural monument of recent German history.
13 years later at the inauguration of the West-Eastern Gate, a land art project at the Inner German Green Belt, by Michail Gorbatchov, the idea of the European Green Belt was born.
Several international conferences followed: 2003 in Bonn/Germany, 2004 in Sarród/Hungary, 2005 in Mitwitz/Germany and Novi Sad/Serbia and 2006 several in Meiningen/Germany, Grad/ Slovenia, Leopoldschlag/Austria and Lahemaa/Estonia and 2007 in Ludwigstal(Germany, Kaspersky Hory (Czech Republic) and Bratislava (Slovakia) followed.
Images: 1,2 BN Archiv, 3 Alexander Purps, 4 BN