Erfurt (dpa/lhe) - The environment ministers of the federal and state governments support the initiative for an application to declare the Green Belt on the former inner-German border a UNESCO World Heritage Site. "This is a milestone," said Thuringia's Environment Minister Anja Siegesmund (Greens) on Friday after deliberations at the Environment Ministers' Conference in Goslar.
The Green Belt should now be on the German list of proposals for World Heritage. This is a chain of different biotopes with a total of 1200 endangered animal and plant species along the former border between the GDR and the FRG. There is also the patrol route, which is still preserved in many places, and the former watchtowers of the GDR border posts.
Thuringia, which borders Hesse, was the first federal state to give the Green Belt the status of a national natural monument by law in 2018, with Saxony-Anhalt following a year later. Thuringia could also imagine being home to the World Heritage Office, said Minister Siegesmund.
