European Green Belt - Ecological Values

Ecological Values

Observations by biologists revealed that the military practice along the borderline led to wildlife conservation in numerous ways:

• A ban on pesticide spraying has preserved many rare insects.
• Keeping the vegetation cut so border guards can see across easily, stopped the area from becoming continuous forest and thus preserved wildlife that needs open land.
• One peculiar occurrence that he noticed was that in a forested part of this belt on the frontier between Bavaria and Czechoslovakia, 18 years after the border barrier was removed, forest deer still refused to cross the frontier: compare hefting of livestock.
• Old landmine explosion craters have become wildlife ponds.
• In the Bulgaria/Greece section there are many eastern imperial eagle nests.
• Where the River Drava is the frontier between Hungary and ex-Yugoslavia (now Croatia): mutual mistrust prevented river improvement works, so the river and its banks are still natural, including the river creating sand cliffs where sand martins nest. The Drava has cut off meanders, leaving many bits of each nation's territory on the wrong side of the river; these areas are not farmed and have become wildlife areas.
• Along the coast of the Mecklenburg area, restricted access to the coast to stop people from crossing over by boat or swimming, helped to preserve coastal wildlife.