European Green Belt

The European Green Belt initiative is a grassroots movement for nature conservation and sustainable development along the corridor of the former Iron Curtain.

[2] In the early 1980s, biologists discovered that the inner German border zone between Bavaria in the west and Thuringia in the east was a refuge for several rare bird species which had disappeared from the intensely used areas covering most of Central Europe.

It is divided into four regional sections: The historical starting point of the initiative was the Green Belt Resolution of Hof (Germany) in December 1989,[4] one month after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

A Memorandum of Understanding to jointly protect the Green Belt in Fennoscandia was signed by the Environmental Ministers of Russia, Finland and Norway in 2010.

Observations by biologists revealed that the military practice along the borderline led to wildlife conservation in numerous ways:[9] It has been proposed to develop not only the natural but also the cultural heritage of the Soviet period: following the idea to link the numerous historical initiatives, installations, projects and relics in the Green Belt with the natural heritage,[10] in order to turn the European Green Belt into living historical monument of the Cold War during the 20th century.

Route of the European Green Belt
Art on the Green Belt, in the area that divided the former East and West Germany . The art installation "Meeting" ( German : Begegnung ) was created in 2010 and was placed next to the bike path
View to the town of Rerik on the Wustrow Peninsula , on the German Baltic Sea coast. The peninsula was mined during Nazi times and was a recreation area during GDR times. Many hotels were built by the FDGB holiday service
Šumava National Park in the Czech Republic, on the border with Germany and the Bavarian Forest National Park . Monument to the Iron Curtain not far from the border crossing
Thayatal National Park in Austria, on the border with the Czech Republic
A hiking trail at the Borderland Museum Eichsfeld leads along preserved parts of the inner-German border . The trail features information panels about the border.