High levels of water at the Drammendorf polders in September 2020.
Contact: Jochen Lamp
The natural salt marshes along the German coastline of the Baltic Sea act as a physical barrier to waves, and protect the coast from flooding and erosion. The peat soils also act as major carbon sinks. Despite this, over the last few decades Germany’s salt marshes were cut off the sea by dikes, drained, and turned into agricultural grassland. This led to the release of vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and to the degradation of rich natural biodiversity.
In 2014, with funding support from the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, WWF Germany embarked on a groundbreaking project to restore two 100 ha polders (artificial coastal areas created by means of dikes and draining) to their natural marine state. The main aims were to create a suitable habitat for wetland birds and plant communities, restore the carbon sink and bring back the coastal protection function of the salt marshes.
However, to achieve this, the landowners needed to agree to the restoration works. In one case, the Baltic Sea Foundation had already bought the land from a state agency in order to restore the polder to a salt marsh. The farmer who was using the grassland intensively to harvest grass crops was given permission to rent the land for grazing cattle on the restored salt marshes, as well as to receive the relevant EU subsidies.
In the second case, the land belongs to private landowners and the Karsten Nendel Foundation. These owners were compensated for the losses in the market value of the land and the loss of reduced crops over the next 25 years. They retained their ownership under an official agreement in the land ownership register, committing that they would never restore the old hydraulic system or rebuild the dikes that would be removed. They also continued to receive EU subsidies and (importantly for them) remained landowners.
Once these agreements were in place, the restoration works began. Planned and managed by WWF, 4.5 km of dikes were removed, allowing sea water into the former meadows. New dikes were built, and one polderwas successfully opened in November 2019 and the second in March 2020. Once flooded, the former polders quickly started to revert back to salt marshes following the sea level of the Baltic Sea.
Both biodiversity and climate have benefited as a result. Five thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide are newly locked in the ground every year and the area is now a hotspot for water birds and migratory birds such as various species of waterfowl.
The restoration of these salt marshes is a perfect example of nature-based solutions in action. The project provides long-term resilience, is cost-effective, and has had a major impact on biodiversity recovery, climate mitigation and flood prevention.
This has been noted by the mayor of Rambin municipality, Andreas Klug, who said “Our municipality has supported the project because we were actively involved from the start and our wishes for our touristic infrastructure were integrated into the project. The project has become an asset for our municipality”.
This article is part of the WWF Baltic Newsletter – December 2020
