The National Park management and bremenports work hand in hand

A first-hand account from Peter Südbeck *

At the Wursten coast to the north of Bremerhaven, there are two adjacent sites which have diametrically opposite characters. One is the Container Terminal for worldwide shipping traffic, hub of global trade routes and a dynamic business environment. Right next to it – without any transitional area in between – is the Wadden Sea National Park of Lower Saxony, whose primary target is to preserve and develop large expanses of unspoilt nature. Amongst other things, the Wadden Sea has to be preserved as a resting place for migrant birds and as a habitat for common seals, porpoises and grey seals.
 
This intersecting location is unique along the whole of the German North Sea coast. You only have to look over the dyke at Weddewarden to see the drastic differences and therefore the conflicting requirements of the two sites.

bremenports and the management board of the National Park have been confronting these challenges since 2002. On the basis of a cooperation agreement, they support each other in the pursuit of their different objectives. Both sides are sure that this is also the right way ahead for the future. The cooperation helped to ensure that the Container Terminal 4 construction project, which borders directly on the National Park, could be completed on time. The nature compensation measures in the National Park, which involved the renaturalisation of dyke foreland areas along the Wursten coast, were synchronised with the construction work. Summer dykes were opened up to encourage the development of salt meadows, restoring to nature a part of the sites which hand been lost owing to port construction.

Projects on that scale are capable of harming an entire region. They affect extremely varied public areas, each of which has highly divergent interests. On the other hand, they can also help to promote the region as a whole. Cooperation has always been and still is essential to convince other decision-makers of a jointly acceptable solution and to create positive effects for everyone involved. In this case, we have succeeded in doing so. Both the cooperation project for the Wursten North Sea coast and the overall concept for the Wadden Sea successfully reconciled the requirements of the port industry not only with nature conservation, but also with the interests of agriculture, coast protection, tourism and the neighbouring villages. New highlights have been created, such as Eversand lighthouse, which was relocated from the Wadden Sea to the coast beside Dorum-Neufeld. The lighthouse is now a landmark for this region and symbolises the development of these districts as tourist areas in conformance with the fundamental objectives of the National Park.

Further projects are planned for the future, such as joint preparations and consultation for integrated sediment management concepts in connection with the turning basin in front of the Container Terminal quay, or the development of nature conservation areas in the National Park.
In June 2009, UNESCO declared the Wadden Sea a World Heritage Site. It is one of the last remaining eco-systems in Europe in which natural ecological and biological processes still take place undisturbed. Maintaining that status over the long term is one of the key tasks and top priorities of the cooperation between the National Park management board and bremenports.
It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to preserve our heritage - and the Wursten North Sea Coast cooperation project is one of the keys to success.

* Peter Südbeck is head of the Wadden Sea National Park of Lower Saxony