From Iron Curtain to Green Belt: Considering Central Europe as a Mnemonic Ecosystem

Abstract

Since its institutional formulation in the late 1980s, the idea of ecological restoration has been debated and refined. More recently, the concept of novel ecosystems has challenged scholars to consider how history, human activity, and dynamic systems intersect with restoration values. But what role do restoration projects have in layered landscapes where meanings are many and the past still hurts? We bring cultural questions around memory to bear on the concept of novel ecosystems and ask how conservation might need to shift in response. We focus here on the Iron Curtain borderlands of central Europe to suggest that the history, human impacts, and changes in these lands may be understood as mnemonic ecosystems. We argue that more fully considering the mnemonic role of restored landscapes encourages greater consideration of local people’s perspectives and concerns, improves conservation outcomes in the long-term, and sustains the landscape’s diverse functions.

Keywords:

• biodiversity conservation
• Central Europe
• environmental history
• landscape perception
• memory
• militarized landscapes
• novel ecosystems
• restoration

Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors deeply appreciate the numerous individuals in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic who took time to speak with us about the Green Belt. Additional thanks to the three reviewers for their thoughtful responses to an earlier draft of this paper and to Jack Hardwick for creating the Green Belt map.

Notes

¹ We focus on these two sites because they exemplify conflicts between conservation and memory. While Germany is the origin of the Green Belt idea, we felt it was important to go beyond the German context to illustrate that these dynamics play out not only along the inter-German border, but also in international settings of central Europe.

² The Bundesamt für Naturschutz, or BfN, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation eventually decided to co-finance the project; it is receiving additional support from local actors like the Thuringian Foundation for Nature Conservation, Stiftung Naturschutz Thüringen.

³ ThLA-Map “Zwangsaussiedlungen” (Forcible Relocations). Accessed January 25, 2019, https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=11URkaW-BVN08e_9seNVls_tY2Xw&ll=51.502419710749976%2C10.4235026804688&z=12

⁴ As historians of the inter-German border have shown, both East and West Germany constructed the wall and had a stake in its existence (Eckert, 2019; Schaefer 2014; Sheffer 2011).

⁵ More on Goldstein’s “Green Belt Adventures” can be found here: https://www.mario-goldstein.de/de/abenteuer-gruenes-band.html (accessed 25 April 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by the Bates Faculty Development Fund, the American Geographic Society, and a CRCW grant from UCCS.