Once upon a time an ‘Iron Curtain’ descended across eastern Europe as East and West faced off in the era of the Cold War.

Consisting of a high wall within a no-go strip 50-200 m wide, and a severely restricted zone some 5 km wide, this curtain separated without discrimination – farms, city-neighbourhoods, streets, and even houses were divided. The curtain lasted around 40 years before falling spectacularly as people from both sides took to it with sledge hammers and even partied on the top.

But in the absence of human interference, species had flourished along the wall as plants, fungi, animals, insects, arachnids and others jockeyed with each other. New ecosystem orders evolved and species migrated to and fro along the corridor between favoured ecosystems. Species that were rare elsewhere could be seen in large numbers sitting on the wall and swimming in the, now-untouched waterways. Black storks, long extinct in central Germany, moved in and were seen nesting in the zone.

Following the removal of the wall, the entire German zone was either bought up by the BUND (Friends of the Earth) or declared a protected zone by the government. The resulting Grünes Band (Green Belt) covers 180 square kilometres as it meanders like a drunken ant some 1400 km along the old east-west border. Along the way it passes through 100 habitats varying from marshes to grasslands and forests – and nearly 50% of its habitats are listed as endangered elsewhere.

But the return was not simply a matter of ‘build it and they will come’.

After the destruction of the wall, species numbers decreased as the area became choked with bushes and saplings, each fighting for its place in the new order. The type of habitat that evolved across Germany after the end of the last Ice Age consisted of a mix of meadows and forests initially maintained by herds of mammoth, horses and aurochs (a type of cattle) and subsequently by early farmers with their mix of fields and forest. Even the troops maintained such a habitat as they removed excess vegetation along the wall for security reasons.

A carefully-managed approach to ‘rewilding’ therefore was adopted. During the Cold War, the BUND had realised the ecological potential of the border zone and had commenced buying up patches of adjacent land for habitat protection. Once the wall disappeared, now-extinct keystone species such as mammoths and aurochs were replaced by so auroch-like cattle. These graze selected areas and maintain a mix of meadow and forest habitat.

In a relatively-short period of a few decades, quasi-stable ecosystems have developed and the Grünes Band and its interconnected habitats now supports a remarkable 1200 threatened species – including species that are thriving here but have essentially disappeared elsewhere in Germany. Sustainable tourism is accommodated via a series of well-marked paths and collaboration between those working in environmental, agricultural, tourism, and historic monument activities.

There are lessons here as we proceed with our ambitious and far-sighted plan for a network of biolinks across the Peninsula.

Will it be sufficient to replant selected areas and maintain a program of weed and pest removal? Or should we be considering encouraging the optimum mix of foundation, keystone, and other species that will together establish and maintain their habitat? And how do our other essential Peninsula characteristics of mixed agriculture, aquaculture, and tourism fit into, and benefit from this process?

We shall never return the Peninsula to its pre-European or its pre-Aboriginal status. But we do have the capacity to contribute to how it will look when our grandchildren and great-grandchildren celebrate the beginning of the 22nd century.

– Article by Greg Holland from an original story here – further information can be found on Wikipedia – top image is from here and the bottom from here.