Chalk cliffs and coastal forests: the green treasures of the Baltic Sea coast of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Around 30 years ago, the original natural landscapes on the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania coast were placed under protection. Since then, it has been shown how the balancing act between nature conservation and tourism can be achieved.

At first it’s just a few black dots in the dark. But their screams suggest that there are many.

Hundreds of cranes rise into the air at dawn and glide over the heads of the visitors to the scream of high trumpets. After 50,000 to 70,000 of the animals flew from Scandinavia to southern Europe in September and October, they return in March and April. And rest between the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula and the island of Rügen. Almost nowhere else in Central Europe can you see migratory birds as numerous as in northeast Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the coast looks like a patchwork of sea and land.

Between nature experience and nature conservation

The cranes are the main characters. But also red deer and wild boar, white-tailed eagles and geese, mute swans and herons take the stage in this region. In the lagoon, on the reed islands, in the mudflats and in the dunes you will find food, protection and peace.

This part of the peninsula is the core area of ​​the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park. The majority of the third largest German national park is easily accessible via hiking trails and bike paths. In the restricted zones, on the other hand, animals and nature remain unmolested by humans. Arctic terns and ringed plovers, for example, can breed there – and seals rest.

The turning point as an opportunity

Also in Jasmund National Park On Rügen, nature must be protected from a good 1.5 million island visitors every year. Peregrine falcons and house martins breed on the slopes of the cliff. Behind the coast lie more than 100 moors, streams and springs where rare plants such as lady’s slipper, giant horsetail and onion tooth root sprout. There is also an idyll that once covered all of Europe, but has become very rare today: the largest contiguous beech forest on the Baltic coast.

At that time, Hans Dieter Knapp made a significant contribution to the fact that the forest was no longer used for forestry purposes and that people were only allowed to visit the area on designated paths. “With the fall of the Wall there was a unique opportunity to see nature conservation in a new light,” recalls the geobotanist and landscape ecologist.

During the GDR era, there were no national parks in eastern Germany, although smaller areas have already been placed under protection. In a push-pull action, Knapp and his colleagues succeeded in anchoring the demand for more protection in the Unification Treaty. A few days before the unification, six biosphere reserves, five national parks and three nature parks were secured under GDR law.

That also included Unesco Biosphere Reserve Southeast Rügen, a cultural landscape shaped by the Ice Age with peninsulas, spits and terminal moraines. From spring to autumn flowering dry grass adorns the hilly landscape, reed belts and salt marshes line the coast.

A fabulous old forest

Vacationers can easily discover the old cultural landscape by bike. Large stone graves from the Neolithic Age, Bronze Age barrows and protected areas can be found between villages with medieval churches and Baltic Sea baths.

Among them is one of the oldest nature reserves on the German coast, the island of Vilm in the Greifswalder Bodden. “A maximum of 9,000 visitors a year have access here,” says Andreas Kuhfuß from the Lenz shipping company, who shows people interested in nature around the island. Centuries-old hornbeams and hornbeams, bizarrely shaped pedunculate oaks, sycamore maples and more than 300 species of ferns and flowering plants grow here.

“Silverware of German Unity”

The island of Vilm owes its history to the fact that the vegetation was able to thrive in a protected manner. During the GDR era, it was used as a vacation home for the GDR Council of Ministers. It was not accessible to the rest of the population for a long time.

Anyone who walks through the pristine forest on horseback and lets their gaze wander through the reed belt over the bay will understand the words of the former Federal Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer. Back then, he had already called the protected areas in northeast Germany the “silverware of German unity”.

Information: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Tourist Board, Konrad-Zuse-Straße 2, 18057 Rostock (Tel .: 0381/40 30 550, E-Mail: [email protected], www.auf-nach-mv.de). Passenger shipping company Lenz, Chausseestraße 5 B, 18581 Putbus (Tel .: 038301/61 896, email: [email protected], www.vilmexkursion.de).

This article was written by Alexandra Frank, dpa