Location: Lower Saxony Map
Area: 345,800 ha
Tel. +49 4421 9110
Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park is located in Lower Saxony region of Germany. Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park covers an area of 345,800 ha of dunes, salt marshes and mudflats on the coast of the Baltic Sea. There is a large diversity of species including mussels, snails, shrimps, mud worms and many other crustaceous that serve as a food for seals and numerous species of birds that flock to the area for nesting.
ecology
The habitats to be protected in this
national park include the mudflats, sandbanks, salt marshes,
beaches, dunes and estuaries into the North Sea. Particular
attention should be paid to the fauna and flora typical of the
Wadden Sea.
The North Sea coast is unusually flat. The sea
floor only drops a few centimeters per kilometer. Twice a day the
tide carries sand, clay and silt into the Wadden Sea area. Dunes
mark the coast, which the wind builds up from the fine grains of
sand from the exposed mudflats.
The Wadden Sea is the second
most productive ecosystem after the tropical rainforest - only this
surpasses the Wadden Sea in terms of living biomass. The life forms
found in the Wadden Sea include diatoms, snails, worms, mussels and
shrimp. A typical inhabitant of the sand mudflat is the lugworm,
which lives in a U-shaped tube under the mudflat surface.
Up
to 4,000 animal and plant species specialize in the unusually
nutritious habitat of the Wadden Sea. For example, shelduck live on
the mud flats, hundreds of thousands of which can be found on the
surface of the mudflats. The north-western European shelduck
population of around 180,000 birds also spends its moulting season
in the Wadden Sea between July and September. Around 200,000 eider
ducks also spend their moulting season here; around 1000 pairs of
eider ducks use the tidal flats of the North Sea as a breeding area.
Most of them breed on the island of Amrum.
At the same time,
the Wadden Sea is a resting area for breeding birds from Nordic
countries, which eat the fat reserves that they need for successful
breeding. There are around 10–12 million waders, geese, ducks and
seagulls in the entire Wadden Sea.
Seals can be seen on the
sandbanks in the Wadden Sea and salt marshes, sandy beaches and
dunes border the Wadden Sea. The sea thistle and sea lavender bloom
in summer on the salt marshes, which are used as breeding grounds
for avocets and terns. The most typical plant of the dunes is the
common beach grass, which fixes the dunes with its extensive roots.
History of the national park
Since the Ramsar Convention of
1971, today's national park areas and the Dollart have been
protected as wetlands of international importance.
In 1979,
Hans-Joachim Augst and Holger Wesemüller submitted an expert report
that developed a zoning model based on the differences in importance
of different areas of the Wadden Sea that are worthy of protection.
The Lower Saxony regional planning program of 1982 then specified
the development of a nature park “East Frisian Islands and Coast” as
a regional planning goal. This idea was taken up in 1983 and
planning for a comprehensive national park began. At the beginning
of 1984 the cabinet resolution basically approving a national park
and on January 1, 1986 the National Park Ordinance came into force.
According to the UNESCO program "man and biosphere", the entire
national park was recognized as a biosphere reserve in 1992, see the
Lower Saxony Wadden Sea Biosphere Reserve.
The national park
has been a registered fauna-flora-habitat area according to the
European Habitats Directive since 1997 with zones I and II. Since
2000 it has also been a registered bird sanctuary under the European
Birds Directive. The national park is part of the Natura 2000
network and protection regime.
Initially, the national park
was protected by an ordinance that came into force in 1986 and was
replaced by a state law in 1999. On July 11, 2001, the law on the
“Lower Saxony Wadden Sea” National Park (NWattNPG) was newly
announced: Numerous areas for tourism were removed from the scope of
the national park or downgraded in the zoning. For this purpose, a
pure marine area off the islands of Borkum and Baltrum and the
former nature reserve in the eastern part of the Dollart were
included in the national park. The protection area increased from
240,000 hectares to almost 280,000 hectares.
In January 2002,
the East Frisian nature conservation group Wattenrat Ost-Friesland
lodged a complaint with the EU Commission in Brussels against the
removal or downgrading of more than 80 partial areas for tourism,
mainly on the East Frisian Islands. The Commission incorporated the
complaint into an ongoing infringement procedure against Germany
(complaint number 2002/4099, Ref .: ENV A2 / MD / avdm D (2005)
6096). After more than four years, in a letter dated October 25,
2006, the EU Commission informed the Wattenrat-Ostfriesland that the
complaint procedure had been closed “because the Federal Republic of
Germany has now designated enough areas as FFH proposal areas” (Ref
.: ENV A.2 / MD / pd D 2006 21119).
In July 2006 the twentieth anniversary of the
Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park was celebrated on the beach of
Neßmersiel on the initiative of the State of Lower Saxony. The Lower
Saxony nature conservation associations under the leadership of the
WWF accompanied the 20th anniversary with a critical “National Park
Balance”, which shows in detail the many conflicts of use.
This national park is listed by the IUCN in "Category II, National
Parks". It should be noted, however, that the World Database on
Protected Areas (WDPA) is based on the reports from the individual
countries and there is currently no independent review of the
assigned categories, which can lead to errors in the listing. It is
also important to know that the categories from I to VI reflect the
objectives of the protected area management, but are not an
indicator of quality, or success or failure. However, the "European
Environment Agency" (EAP) lists the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National
Park in "Category V, Protected Landscape", i.e. roughly a landscape
protection area (written information from the UNEP World
Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC) in Cambridge on 23
October 2008).
In 2008, the Wadden Sea in Lower Saxony and
Schleswig-Holstein was proposed to UNESCO for nomination as a UNESCO
World Heritage Site. Walter Hirche (FDP) has been President of the
German UNESCO Commission since 2003, who was Minister of Economics
in Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2009.
In the run-up to the
nomination of the Wadden Sea as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a
senior officer of the Switzerland-based International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and representatives of the tourism
industry in and around the Wadden Sea took part in an expert visit.
From newspaper reports published at the same time and later,
however, it emerged that the UNESCO nomination should primarily
serve as an “internationally effective marketing instrument for the
tourism industry” and that it did not involve any additional
restrictions through nature conservation measures.
“We have
to make the UNESCO World Heritage Site known at home and abroad and
point out its importance as a unique ecosystem with a special
biodiversity, says Friesland's District Administrator Sven Ambrosy.
So far, despite its age, the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park
still has a comparatively low level of awareness. [...] A region can
only market itself if it is proud of itself and loves it. "
“According to the IHK, this international award also offers great
opportunities for tourism. “The region can and must grow with the
pound”, explained the IHK boss. Should the Wadden Sea actually be
awarded this title, the entire North Sea coast would receive a new
trademark. Kolck emphasized that recognition as a world natural
heritage would not change the current legal situation. "
On
June 26, 2009, the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park, together
with the Dutch Wadden Sea and the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea
National Park in Seville, were recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. The Hamburg Wadden Sea was recognized as a UNESCO World
Heritage Site on June 27, 2011. Denmark has so far refused to
nominate its tidal flats.
On February 19, 2010, the law on
the "Lower Saxony Wadden Sea" National Park was changed again and
adapted to the Federal Nature Conservation Act. As a result of the
amendment, the national park was enlarged by approx. 670 km², mainly
in the area of Cuxhaven and the Elbe-Weser estuary. The total area
grew to almost 3500 km².