Nature conservation on the west coast of northern Germany

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The west coast of Schleswig-Holstein is characterised by the marine habitat of the Wadden Sea, the adjoining marshland with its characteristic dykes and dyked lands the adjacent tidal flats in the hinterland. The dyked lands in the marsh landscape of the west coast were created by dykes for land reclamation. Heavily drained, the marshes are now mainly used intensively as fertile farmland and grassland. For this reason, increasingly large parts of the dyked marshes, which were removed from the Wadden Sea after 1935, have been designated as nature conservation areas and/or incorporated into flora and fauna habitats (FFH) and/or EU bird sanctuaries. The activities of the project partner Integrated Station West Coast are focussed on these "nature protection dyked lands" as well as on the protected areas in the Eider estuary and the Eiderstedt EU bird sanctuary. The areas managed by the Integrated Station West Coast include wet meadows with very high water levels and extensive mowing or grazing, which are of great importance for meadow birds and wild geese in particular.
You support the staff of the Integrated Station West Coast in creating and maintaining favourable conditions for particularly endangered breeding and resting bird species such as lapwing, skylark, ruff, redshank, black-tailed godwit, little ringed plover, little tern and little ringed plover, which are dependent on wet and open grassland. The measures are primarily aimed at improving the habitat conditions for the highly endangered meadow and coastal birds, which are dependent on open and moist grassland. With your support in clearing grassland, cutting willows, removing shrubs, maintaining the nature trail, caring for breeding islands and other maintenance measures, retreats for numerous rare animal and plant species as well as an important reservoir of biodiversity can be preserved and improved.
In addition to the practical work, you will learn a lot about nature and environmental protection in general and in the dyked lands in particular from the staff of the Integrated Station West Coast. You will learn a lot about the local flora and fauna, their relevance for the ecosystem and the various measures to protect them.