Central Europe

The History

In the area of the former Iron Curtain, which formed a most divisive and inhumane border between East and West Germany, nobody was admitted to enter the border strip itself. Due to the remoteness and numerous restrictions the situation was similar in most border areas in Central Europe.

In 1989 the Iron Curtain was removed due to numerous protests of the people. In Sopron, on the border between Hungary and Austria, several thousand people from the former GDR gathered to flee to Austria. The process of ending the era of seclusion was not to be stopped. Today the countries in Central Europe are struggling for good cooperation across borders. Huge efforts are undertaken to overcome the infrastructure deficits and to promote economic development along these areas that had been left out of national development plans for decades.

Apart from the inner-German border, which is a special situation along its course, the Green Belt follows the borders in Central Europe that formerly had separated the East from the West. Conservation areas on both sides of the borders clearly show a need for transboundary cooperation and a coordination of transboundary projects will facilitate an optimal use of the financial tools of the European Union.

The Heritage

Now, that entering the former „death zone“ no longer has life-threatening consequences, scientists have found a wealth of wildlife including some extremely rare species. In the southernmost area of Germany alone, they came across 130 bird species, including the whinchat, the black stork, the black grouse, the nightjar and the northern shrike. Along with these bird species, hundreds of other animal and plant species on the Red List have made their homes in the Green Belt, that creates a unifying link between habitats, which are otherwise fragmented in today's cultural landscape.

In the intensively used cultural landscape of Central Europe, the Green Belt is a last retreat and structural element for many endangered species. It forms a bridging element between grassland fallow and damp sites, between dry grassland and stands of mature woodland.

The Danube and its numerous tributaries have been left untouched only in few places, as for example in the border region of Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Serbia. Wetlands and floodplains along the former Iron Curtain are a destination for tourists today, calling for intense cooperation in management and development planning.

The Challenge

In Central Europe, the Green Belt is threatened especially through intensive agriculture. Time and again, areas which have lain fallow for decades are ploughed up or degraded by conversion into intensive grassland. Ecological gems are squandered to create more unnecessary farmland and while parts of the former border in forest area are still basically well preserved, wherever it passes through open fields, the Green Belt comes under greater threat.

Increasing leisure industry and its implications form another negative impact on the Green Belt. Hotels, roads and transit routes are planned in border regions, that will lead to fragmentation of valuable habitats and threaten the ecological network. Waterpower projects on rivers and electricity production projects are demanded for by decision makers . Infrastructure projects call for extensive land use planning concepts for a sustainable development of the regions in harmonisation with environmental conservation.

The small structured landscapes in Central Europe force us to face the huge challenge of considering a high variety of interests and the most differing claims made by various groups and stakeholders.

The Effort

Dr. Kai Frobel from the Bavarian branch of of BUND (Friends of the Earth) was the first to recognise the value the secluded areas had for nature conservation. As early as 1989, the BUND in Germany and other conservationists engaged in protecting valuable habitats along the Green Belt.

In December 1989, the first meeting of more than 400 nature conservationists from East- and West Germany was organised and took place in the town Hof in the Bavarian-Saxonian-Czech border area. During this meeting, the name Green Belt was created and all participants agreed to the first resolution for the protection of the unique habitats of the Green Belt Germany – the project was born. This was the first conservation activity that included areas from eastern and western Germany, and it turned out to be one of the most supported and successful projects due to its symbolic character.