Erfurt (dpa/th) - In the fight against climate change, Thuringia needs larger wetlands from the point of view of the nature conservation association Nabu. "A lot more has to happen here," said Nabu spokesman Jürgen Ehrhardt on Wednesday on request. Floodplains and moors are not only important habitats for many animal and plant species, but also store a lot of climate-damaging greenhouse gases.
Compared to the previous year, the area of wetlands in the Free State increased by around one percent in 2021, as the Thuringian State Office for Statistics announced on Wednesday. According to the information, 47 hectares of moorland and 508 hectares of swamp areas were recorded in 2021. Together, this corresponds to 0.03 percent of the land area of the federal state. The largest area for swamp areas, at 200 hectares, was in the Altenburger Land, while the largest moor area at 14 hectares was in the Saale-Orla district.
The growth is "hardly measurable," said Ehrhardt. Nevertheless, it is good that attention is being paid to this topic. In the 1960s, some of these areas were radically drained. "Drained areas urgently need to be renatured or rewetted."
World Wetlands Day, held annually on February 2nd, was created by Unesco. The day of action is intended to commemorate the international agreement adopted in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar to protect these endangered habitats. With the signing of the treaty in 1976, Germany committed itself to preserving 34 areas primarily as habitats for birds.
