Maintaining the landscape

With the decline in agricultural use from the mid-1960s onwards, the cultivated landscape rapidly became overgrown. The former arable land was no longer visible and the water quality, particularly in the ditches, declined rapidly. With the further decline in agricultural use in the 1990s, this effect accelerated once again.

In contrast, the attractive landscape of the Spreewald around the village of Lehde is perceived in particular through the alternation of deciduous forest, open meadows and cultivated farmland. However, such a landscape is not created by itself, but as part of a cultural landscape. This now requires many committed helpers, with whom we preserve and maintain at least part of this varied landscape around our village.

From an initial idea, we therefore began working with many Spreewald volunteers from 2010 onwards on individual areas and ditches to clear dead wood, wind breakage and pruning unstable groups of alder trees. From 2017, together with the Spreewald Fishermen’s Association, many voluntary work assignments followed, so that a visible and open cultural landscape with the “double ditches” created more than 200 years ago could quickly be recognized again in the area of the “moorige Tschummi”.

But our ambition grew, there were and are plenty of areas and bodies of water whose revitalization should promise success. In the years that followed, we also ventured into more complex projects.

As the clean-up work has to be carried out with a lot of enthusiasm and manual labor during the vegetation break – i.e. in the winter months – the spring and summer always surprised us with the results. Already in the first following summer, pike, tench, whitefish and crayfish had returned to the ditches, as the fishermen confirmed to us. Red deer, wild boar, herons, storks and dragonflies have also returned to these open areas.

Overall, we have set our sights on sustainable maintenance and meadow mowing in the next step, so that our work also extends to the summer months.

Herbs – a necessity for river maintenance

In the summer months, the regular, very laborious removal of excess vegetation is necessary to keep the waterways in the Spreewald open and navigable. In the past, clearing was mainly carried out to make the rivers usable as traffic routes. Today, in addition to the safety of the barge routes, it is primarily used for nature conservation and landscape management.

At the same time, the weeding prevents the streams from silting up, which would otherwise silt up over time and become visibly overgrown. Without this regular maintenance, the Spreewald would gradually lose its characteristic waterways, which are the reason for the landscape’s uniqueness.

In addition to weeding, regular mowing of the areas is necessary to preserve the cultural landscape of the Spreewald. As the areas are now only used extensively for arable farming, regular mowing must prevent the areas from becoming overgrown again. We organize all of this work through the Lehde Support Association in numerous volunteer hours.

Many of the maintenance tasks, such as weeding or meadow care, are still carried out by hand and often collectively. The work of the “Spreewälder” is not only a practical necessity, but also an expression of a deep connection with their homeland.