Natural World (1983) s28e15 Episode Script

For nearly 40 years, Europe was divided.
An Iron Curtain separated communist states in the East from capitalist countries in the west.
When this brutal barrier was ripped down 20 years ago, it left a paradox.
Along its length, the barbed wire and minefields had preserved a thin strip of Europe, and its wildlife, from the ravages of the modern world.
This is the story of how the Iron Curtain became one of the biggest conservation projects in the world .
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turning a death zone into a sanctuary for life.
The German countryside in the 1970s appeared to be a very tranquil place.
Kai Frobel was just a teenager who spent hours and hours making detailed observations of wildlife.
But he was doing this right next to the constant reminder that his country had been split in two.
TRANSLATION: I grew up very close to the border.
My bedroom was about 400 metres away.
Every day, when I woke up, I could look out of the window and see the East German border.
The militarised zone was just part of Kai's life.
He was more concerned about the rapid disappearance of songbirds and decided to plot his observations of one, the whinchat, on a map.
He discovered something remarkable.
The sightings formed a line around Coburg, and that line matched the route of the Iron Curtain.
The whinchats were living in the no-man's land dividing East and West Germany.
Back then, Kai could do nothing about his discovery.
The frontier was off-limits and, like everyone, he believed it would stay that way.
In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, the leaders of the Soviet Union, USA and Britain met to redraw the map of Europe.
Winston Churchill, the British war-time Prime Minister, predicted a bleak future.
CHURCHILL: 'A shadow has fallen upon the scenes 'so lately lighted by the Allied victory.
'From Stettin, in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, 'an iron curtain has descended across the continent.
' Germany itself was brutally divided into two countries - Hundreds of East Germans died trying to escape to the west.
Many who made it across the frontier suffered horrific wounds.
TRANSLATION: My father was a doctor.
He had to treat victims of mines who stood in our surgery, covered in blood.
It was very depressing to hear about the fate of families who were torn apart by this border.
It seemed as if the Iron Curtain was built for eternity.
Kai understood why such a dangerous and reviled frontier had become a sanctuary for the whinchats and other creatures.
The strip of land that divided East and West was out of bounds, it never suffered from intensive agriculture, or from sprays that kill pests and weeds.
As a consequence, it was rich in wild flowers and insects, many of which had become rare in the rest of Germany.
It was an ecological time warp.
It remained marooned between the two conflicting ideologies until a seismic political shift threatened its whole existence.
The countries to the east of the Iron Curtain were controlled by the might of the Soviet Union, but in the 1980s there was a change in its leadership.
Mikhail Gorbachev, facing severe economic problems, introduced liberal reforms.
Hungary was the first of the eastern bloc countries to break away.
The symbolic breach of the Iron Curtain between Hungary and Austria opened a floodgate.
At last ordinary people could cross the divide.
In 1989, thousands of East Germans left the communist bloc for West Germany.
After decades of cruel separation, families were reunited.
But Kai knew that the old border zone could now be developed.
To save the precious wildlife within it, he would have to act fast.
TRANSLATION: On the first day after the border opening, we decided to hold a meeting of nature conservationists from West and East.
When we drove to the meeting in Hof, there were hundreds of Trabis already in the car park.
We were upset because we thought they were there just to go shopping.
But no, these were 400 people from East Germany who had come to the meeting.
At this very emotional gathering the idea and name "Gruenes Band", Green Belt, was born.
Now united, the German conservationists were determined to turn the former borderlands into a linear green belt, a protected place for nature, running the length of Germany.
The Iron Curtain was so hated that within weeks all that was left were the concrete tracks that once marched its length.
The border served a uniquely important function - it linked different habitats, dry grassland to wet meadows, water to woodland.
Running north to south, it allowed plants and animals to move, in their different ways, along this corridor.
So anything interrupting it might damage its value to wildlife.
And in places it was damaged before it could be saved.
The concrete tracks were ripped out and precious meadows were ploughed up.
Elsewhere, animals were stopped in their tracks by new motorways that scythed through the old border.
The Green Belt movement, led by the conservation group the BUND, had a race on its hands.
Part of the group campaigned up in the north where the former border meets the Baltic Sea.
In the past, the military protected the coastal area by keeping people away.
As a consequence, it had become a vital staging place for one of Europe's shyest birds.
Each autumn, wild cranes visited this coastal strip, but with the military gone, what would happen to them? Conservationists lobbied hard.
Within a year of the Iron Curtain collapsing, they persuaded the German government to create a National Park.
It's the largest protected area on the Baltic coast and, safe from persecution, crane numbers have trebled to 45,000.
After a few weeks' rest, the cranes fly to France and Spain for the winter.
South of the Baltic were other key areas that, during the Cold War, would have been too dangerous to survey.
Along the strip of prohibited grassland, members of the BUND discovered a lost world.
Once, people would have been shot on sight here.
But nowadays, the only searchlights are those of moth collector, Uwe Fischer.
He's made astonishing finds - many different species of moths, some of which had not been seen elsewhere in Germany for decades.
The Iron Curtain had sheltered insects of all kinds from pesticide sprays being used on either side of the border.
Karin Kowol is a biologist working along the Green Belt in central Germany, where, in the 1990s, scientists discovered an insect they thought was extinct here.
The bush cricket is a rather big grasshopper, with a fat belly which explains its German name, "Wanstschrecke".
"Wanst" means fat belly, and "Heuschrecke" is the name for a grasshopper.
Insects are not as immediately appealing as elegant cranes, but they needed to win support if their meadow was to be saved from the plough.
I thought about how such a small insect could be made popular.
I decided to develop something like a character.
When we saw this cartoon and we showed it to the people, everybody started to love it.
Willy Fat-Belly has become a local hero and, thanks to Karin's campaign, his future looks assured.
It wasn't just sniper fire that once made this meadow a no-go area.
Hundreds of mine craters became tiny reservoirs of life.
All along the green belt, Europe's disappearing wildlife was being given a second chance.
But the idea, hatched by Kai Frobel and his colleagues from the shadows of the old watchtowers, had to do more than protect fat grasshoppers and wild cranes.
It also had to maintain the border strip if the flowers and insects were to prosper.
In the past the meadows were cropped, so the guards had a clear line of sight.
Ironically, the old regime of mowing suited the wild grasses and flowers.
The old machinery is long gone, but the Green Belt movement has come up with an alternative.
SHEEP BAA One of the threats the natural grassland faces is invaders.
Lupins may look lovely but they don't belong here.
They are aggressive colonisers, but they're no match for the flock.
The meadow may look down-trodden, but the sheep have helped restore its natural balance.
Improvements were also needed where the old border crossed the Harz Mountains in central Germany.
A former East German listening post still dominates the surrounding forests.
The forests were in good shape, but they had become unnaturally quiet.
It wasn't just a no-MAN's land - the large predators that once roamed here had been exterminated long before the Iron Curtain.
The Green Belt faced a fascinating challenge.
In 1999, local scientists were given support for an ambitious project, to reintroduce the lynx - a first step in bringing these forests back to life.
Lynx, chosen from wildlife parks in Germany and Sweden, were first placed in outdoor pens.
After a few weeks on probation, the team picked out animals that looked like they'd thrive in the wild.
Before release, each was given a health check and a microchip ID tag.
Then the animal was moved to a secret location.
In all, 24 lynx were set free.
How well would they fare in the wild? Three years later, scientists were delighted to see the first wild-born cub.
Since then, youngsters have been observed each year.
Even better, lynx have been sighted further east and west from the border zone.
The Green Belt has acted as a refuge from which they've reclaimed their old haunts.
All these different campaigns have led to a huge achievement.
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Green Belt movement has protected almost a third of Germany's old internal border.
But could Kai Frobel's idea of a Green Belt work along the entire length of the frontier which once divided Europe? Die Zukunft des Gruenen Bandes liegt damit In 2002, Kai and his colleagues invited Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of change in Eastern Europe, to become the patron of a new initiative.
SPEAKS RUSSIAN INTERPRETER SPEAKS GERMAN The Green Belt ideal would be carried, like a torch, along 8,000 miles of national boundaries, from the Adriatic to the Arctic, uniting former enemies and protecting the wildlife along its length.
But this place would be a challenge.
It's been a tense front line ever since Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917.
The old Cold War enemies continue to face each other across this border.
Since no hunting is allowed, it's become a refuge for bears, and for Europe's rarest large predator, the wolverine.
It's as much a scavenger as a hunter, and prepared to defend a newly discovered carcass.
The Green Belt movement wants to create and connect reserves on either side of the border zone to protect animals like the wolverine.
But how do you check on the quality of the forests where there's still so much forbidden territory? Alpo Hassinen is a scientist based close to the border.
He's found a clever way around the problem.
First he selects which areas need to be surveyed.
And then he gets all the hard work done for him.
The plane guides itself across the landscape, following Alpo's pre-programmed route.
It takes a series of high-resolution photos of the forests below.
It even flies 30 miles into Russian territory.
But this is no spy plane.
It's assessing which areas are best for wildlife.
And when the job is done, the computer even lands the plane.
Well even computers have their limits! The photographs are carefully analysed.
Then Finnish and Russian conservationists together will propose reserves to protect the most important and rarest species.
It's an example of how a good idea can unite former enemies.
But far to the south is evidence of the long-lasting psychological impact of the Iron Curtain.
Here there were already national parks on either side of the Cold War frontier.
Where the Sumava National Park in former Czechoslovakia and the Bavarian Forest National Park meet, a clearing runs straight through the woods.
Up until 1989 the border was reinforced by a line of barbed wire.
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, managers from the neighbouring parks have attempted to find out more about the animals in the border area.
They put satellite collars on some red deer to track their movements .
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and discovered a strange relict from the Cold War.
The deer from either side moved up to the border-line .
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and then turned back, even though the barbed wire and fences had been ripped down 18 years earlier.
There was nothing to see, no physical barrier, nothing to stop them moving across the clearing.
But the existence of that terrible boundary appears to live on in their minds.
The Cold War holds a ghostly grip on the deer.
No-one knows whether they'll ever overcome their phobia of the frontier.
To the south of these forests where the Iron Curtain twisted around Austria and her former eastern neighbours, there is very little wilderness left.
So Rainer Raab has had to take the ideas of the Green Belt movement and apply them to rich farmland.
At stake is one of Europe's most spectacular birds, the great bustard.
I started working with bustards in 1999, so 10 years I work with great bustards and I spent more than 2,000 hours per year on great bustard work.
It's my life.
However, it's a job getting close to them, because they're so shy of humans, despite being Europe's biggest bird.
When the Iron Curtain came down, 20 of these endangered birds were discovered hanging on in the prohibited border area between Austria and Hungary.
But what would happen now they were exposed to the modern world? With support from the EU, Rainer persuaded hunters not to shoot them, and arranged for subsidies to be paid to farmers who left some fields untilled, areas for the bustards to court and breed.
Great bustards are really incredible birds, and their behaviour sometimes really unbelievable.
On the set-aside land the older males strut their stuff.
The younger males, teenagers, form unruly gangs and turn their frustrations on each other.
The males with real status begin by inflating their necks and turning up their moustaches.
Then their whole bodies appear to turn back to front, and inside out.
It only works for some of the females, for some of the time! The concerted efforts of Rainer, the farmers and hunters have paid off.
There are now over 250 birds living alongside modern agriculture.
The area close to the border that Rainer monitors remains a haven, but since the Iron Curtain came down, new obstacles have sprung up.
Bustards are strong flyers but not very manoeuvrable.
In some places, cables have been marked with black-and-white balls to warn the birds, but elsewhere there are unmarked wires.
It's always a terrible moment if you find a dead bird.
In one year I found eight birds.
It was really terrible.
The route west into Austria is treacherous, but the birds can still fly east.
The bustards are on the same day in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, and it makes no sense to have special protection areas only in one country.
It's necessary to protect them in all three countries.
To check where the birds are going, Rainer meets colleagues from Slovakia and Hungary each month where the three countries meet.
International teamwork along the green belt has created a place where people and bustards can live together.
And when I was here at 8:20 I saw a male coming from the Hungarian side to the Austrian side.
Were you able to see this bird too? No, I think at this time I was somewhere here It's easier to manage wildlife where farming subsidies are available.
But further south in poorer Balkan countries, the Green Belt movement ran into a tricky problem.
The ridge line of the Karawanken mountains forms the border between Austria and the former Yugoslavia.
Border stones and a fallen plaque used to warn walkers away from these forbidden heights.
On what is now the Slovenian side, times were hard after the Second World War, there were few opportunities in the isolated communities close to the border and many people abandoned the region.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain people returned, and naturally wanted to improve their lot.
More intensive agriculture promised a better life, but that threatened the huge number of wild daffodils that carpeted the Alpine meadows.
Daffodils contain toxins that poison cattle and sheep.
In the past farmers were forced to wait until they withered before they could gather their hay.
Few now wanted to wait so long, so they began ploughing and reseeding their meadows.
The Green Belt movement had to come up with an idea that would save the daffodils, but offer a decent living.
They persuaded local communities to promote the daffodils as a tourist attraction.
Now, visitors from all over Europe help to support the local economy.
So everyone benefits! Thanks to local self-help and the support of the Green Belt movement, the Karawanken Alpine meadows are returning to their former glory.
And Kai Frobel's original idea, to preserve as many gems as possible along the line of the former Iron Curtain, has been extended a little further.
To the south of Slovenia, challenges remain.
Here, there's another spectacular strip of wild Europe whose future has been thrown into doubt, now the Iron Curtain has come down.
Here, a once mistrustful frontier between Hungary and Yugoslavia, now Croatia, ran along the length of the Drava River.
It was strictly off-limits and was therefore left well alone.
Today, with most of Europe's large rivers straightened and dredged, the Drava is a precious reminder of how a wild river behaves.
On the outside of bends, the current cuts away at the bank creating cliffs of sand.
These are important for a bird that's disappearing from much of Europe - the sand martin.
The Drava still boasts a population of over 10,000.
One of Croatia's torchbearers of the Green Belt ideal is Darko Grlica.
He's supported by EuroNatur, their European Nature Heritage Fund.
Five years I give all of my energy to work on the Drava River.
I love this river.
I remember when I was a young boy, just dreaming about the river.
All Drava animal is favourite for me! I like every one, but maybe, maybe maybe sand martins held my heart.
The Drava River is critical to the survival of Darko's favourite birds, but they're threatened by supposed "improvements" to the river.
This was once the site of a sand martin colony but it was lost forever when the banks were stabilised with rocks.
And today there is still illegal dredging for sand and gravel from the river bed.
This disrupts the natural flow of the river.
Each year Darko travels the length of the Drava to check what's going on and to survey the birds.
Over time he's made a fascinating discovery.
In 1919, the border was fixed along the line of the river, but the Drava kept changing its course, making meanders and then oxbows.
The result is that the twisting border and the winding river cross and re-cross.
Parts of Croatia were marooned on the Hungarian side and vice-versa.
These patches of no-man's land were left uncultivated, and forests grew up where white-tailed eagles prosper, undisturbed by people.
The eagles can only nest in mature trees, which are hard to find elsewhere.
This section of the Drava boasts over 30 eagle nests.
The hard work of Darko and his colleagues has brought success.
Recently this river and flood plain were given protection by law, adding it to the precious ribbon of life stretching across Europe.
South of the Drava, the Green Belt idea is fingering its way across the Balkans.
Macedonia and Albania meet on Lake Ohrid.
The town of Ohrid goes back over 2,000 years, boasting a succession of glorious civilisations.
Roman and Byzantine mosaics provide a glimpse into the rich wildlife and bountiful natural resources of the region.
But during the Cold War, this area became a forgotten backwater.
Today the European Green Belt movement is trying to preserve this area's outstanding diversity.
It's been a home of a huge number or rare plants and animals ever since the last ice age.
The lake itself is one of the most ancient on earth.
It's so deep it's never dried up.
Over the millennia, animals have evolved within its water that are found nowhere else.
A freshwater sponge.
The letnica, a trout unique to the lake.
30 years ago they were in deep trouble from pollution, but recent improvements in water quality and a ban on fishing have seen numbers increase.
The lake is fed by underwater springs.
The water percolates underground from neighbouring Lake Prespa, which itself lies on the boundary.
Three countries - Greece, Macedonia and Albania - can claim the water of this lake, and their borders meet close to the island of Golem Grad.
The island is out of bounds.
Left alone, the juniper bushes have grown into tall trees and cormorants nest in their tops.
The lake's critically important for rare Dalmatian pelicans, and pygmy cormorants, which thrive on the large number of fish that live here.
The most startling inhabitants are water snakes.
They also feed on fish, but they're here in such large numbers because they're free from human persecution.
Like the crickets, the cranes and trout, they profit from the many protected areas created along the line of the east-west divide.
Beyond Prespa, the Green Belt ideas are spreading east.
Here the frontier dividing Bulgaria from Turkey is also the new eastern border of the European Union.
It's heavily guarded to this day.
The guards look out for illegal immigrants and smugglers, but they've also become unexpected champions of the Green Belt movement.
For the past 40 years, Bulgaria's border here has been strictly regulated and the access to the border area has been not easy, at least say.
People needed special permission and special papers to get into the 30-kilometre area from the border, and not anyone was allowed to get into that area.
So there were very few people living there and that, yes, preserved the nature in its quite pristine state.
The sharp-eyed guards take note of any birds, in particular sightings of Europe's rarest eagle.
With the extra support from the border police, the Green Balkans team can better protect the imperial eagles' nests.
It is the most important area for the breeding of that species, and it is one of the species that was almost extinct about 20 years ago, from Bulgaria, but here in the Green Belt area is the last sanctuary where about 90% of Bulgaria's population is hosted.
It's a measure of the Green Belt movement's success that border guards have have joined the cause.
But the local Green Balkans team have other ambitions.
There's little economic investment along the border zone.
Villages are being slowly abandoned as young people drift to the cities.
But the area still has much wildlife, plants and animals that have vanished elsewhere in Europe.
Could the wonderful wildlife help the local economy by bringing tourists to the area? One novel way might be so-called vulture restaurants - dead animals left out on open hillsides, which attract Egyptian and Griffon vultures.
These scavengers are rare in eastern Europe and the carcasses help boost their numbers.
In Spain, this practice has attracted human visitors to watch the feast.
Might it bring much-needed tourist Euros to this poor and remote corner of Europe? The Green Belt idea has been applied in many novel and creative ways, along an 8,000-mile strip from the Arctic to the Black Sea.
Out of Kai Frobel's original vision has emerged the biggest conservation project in the world.
TRANSLATION: I think everyone who has worked for the Green Belt should be proud.
We may even act as a kind of a role model.
The Green Belt has two functions.
It is not only extremely valuable for the conservation of wildlife, it is also a living ecological symbol to bring countries together.
It is now a peaceful path where once was a cruel border.
This desire for reconciliation and peace has been enthusiastically taken up by all the individuals working along the length of the Green Belt.
It remains a symbol of what can be achieved when, out of the ashes of oppression, an inspirational idea is allowed to take flight.