Fairytale meadow at Nebelsee – that sounds like “Once upon a time…”. And the fairytale meadow was indeed once, for many years, a moorland that was drained for agricultural use. The Prussians started this, and in the 1980s the local LPG finally intensified the use of the meadow as grassland.
A few years ago, the Berlin lawyer Daniel Fuchs acquired the forestry company that included the area he already knew from his childhood. “Back then I watched as the ditches were being dug to drain the fairytale meadow.”
The measure cost 500,000 euros
Planning for rewetting began three years ago and was carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture. He was able to terminate a long-term lease agreement with the agricultural company for the approximately 16 hectare site by mutual agreement. Other project partners include the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Regional Agency and the Ministry for the Environment and Climate Protection.
Its boss, Agriculture and Environment Minister Dr. Till Backhaus (SPD) therefore insisted on putting the moor into operation in its future “original form”, so to speak, as a carbon storage facility. “I am of the opinion that moors are typical of our country’s landscape and belong to it like the coast to the Baltic Sea,” said Backhaus. “I am therefore pleased today to announce the completion of the construction work and thus the start of Moor Futures production, with which we are taking another small but effective step towards climate-neutral and sustainable land use.”
No more connection to the Nebelsee
Thanks to the water retention achieved on the Märchenwiese, around 9,500 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent would be avoided over the next 50 years. “When we think about the future, we need more projects of this kind that can be implemented quickly and easily,” says Minister Backhaus. The potential is there because Mecklenbug-Western Pomerania has numerous moor areas of this size.
The actual measure, which cost around 500,000 euros, was financed through a program called Moor future: Citizens and companies purchase ecological carbon certificates, the proceeds of which are used for projects such as the waterlogging of the fairytale meadow. In this case, among other things, the filling of the drainage ditches and the dismantling of the pumping station were carried out. This means that the site no longer has a drainage connection to the Nebelsee, which in turn improves its water quality. In the future, anyone interested can see how the moor is developing from a hiking trail that runs past it.
2023-11-15 22:14:52
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