Kerstin Lange

16-Jan-25 -

My first reaction to the Green Belt was puzzlement: I was looking for it on the Priwall Peninsula, the beginning or the end (depending on which way you look) of the border that cut across the German landscape during the Cold War. There were few remains of the military installations and I could see no flashy natural wonders. I realized quickly that finding it would require detective work, and that the natural wonders were of a more subtle kind than in, say, Yellowstone Park.  They are, however, no less significant: over 1,200 rare and threatened plant and animal species have been documented in and along this narrow ribbon of land. Fascinated by this irony of history, I embarked on a bicycle expedition along this 1,393 km long trace in the landscape to explore its history and meaning. I wrote about it in an essay for the Revelator (the online magazine of the Center for Biological Diversity) and in my book about the human and ecological stories surrounding the former border, today's Green Belt (Phantom Border. A Personal Reconnaissance of Contemporary Germany). 
The nomination of the Green Belt as a mixed natural and cultural world heritage site strikes me as profoundly meaningful. As both a living memorial to those who died there and a flagship conservation project, it inspires visitors to contemplate our place in the human and more-than-human story on this planet.

Read more from Kerstin Lange here.

Zoë Sheng

Chinese-Canadian - 29-Aug-24 -

I don't understand this attempt to inscribed a natural place around a cultural wall. The wall is not there anymore and a lot of land has gone back to agriculture use. I went to visit the Monument DDR-Grenzbeobachtungsturm near Hof and I saw very little that it could represent. How can it still be a 1,393 km long, continuous zone after all these changes in the last 25 years?! I also went to the old border post at Stapelburg and it was more natural and wild but in no way would I inscribed this as a site for being a landscape. A rather poor decision.

Just FYI the place in Hof is not free but if you arrive after the museum is closed (5pm?) nobody will really stop you. Also you are looking at the landscape and not the DDR border so I don't quite understand the costs.

Daniel C-Hazard

Germany - 02-Apr-24 -

I am surprised and excited to see this nomination. Born in Fulda and still returning to the Rhön a lot for visiting family and practicing paragliding, I know the Rhön very well - but actually the whole area between Rhön and Harz mountains (I focus on the Rhön area in this post). What I do not quite get though is the „Natural only“ nomination. Needless to say, the former border, a man-made strip of landscape with many monuments and museums nowadays, would also fall into the „Cultural“ category (so why not nominate a „Mixed“ site here?). That said, the decade-long off-limits character has surely contributed to some untouched nature. I can recommend a visit to the Rhön, already a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Here, you can visit Schwarzes Moor [picture], which comes with a boardwalk and a free observation tower. If you like, you can also sink your legs into the bog mud at a designated spot (and shower off afterwards). This rain moor is a legacy of the Last Glacial Period. From the parking lot (at „Haus zum Schwarzen Moor“), I recommend to walk NNW for 10 minutes to „Ehemaliger Grenzturm am Dreiländereck“, a good spot to see the former border with corresponding interventions in the landscape. Overall, despite the „Natural only“ focus, this would be a worthwhile WHS.