by Kalle Trappe
When working in spatial planning, one will inevitably find themselves in the following situation: A planning decision that may have made a lot of sense in the moment it was made, be it fifty, a hundred or perhaps, two hundred and seventy five years ago, has now evolved into an unmitigated disaster of heretofore unknown dimensions. It needs to be fixed. Preferably yesterday.
Paved with Good Intentions
In 1750, the Electorate of Hanover made one such decision. Faced with a crisis resulting from a marked increase in population, occurring simultaneously to a time of great poverty and social need, the government put forth a scheme for the controlled colonialisation of the barely anthropogenically influenced bogs and marshes within their territory (Heinicke 2012). The plan was to create a livelihood for the disadvantaged parts of the population, large groups of which were either people poor in land or entirely unsettled and migrating across Fresia and the Netherlands in search of seasonal work. Additionally, the scheme would provide much needed access to peat as a resource to be burned as fuel in the quickly growing cities and industries. With the goal of demographic growth and an economic upturn in mind, the systematic drainage and settlement of the wetland began (Heinicke 2012).
The area chosen for the scheme was the ‘Teufelsmoor’, roughly 577 km² (Bundesamt für Naturschutz n. d.) of moorland just north of the city of Bremen. The name of the region, while literally translating to ‘the devils bog’ is derived from ‘dumb’ rather than ‘devil’, referring to its agricultural uselessness. With the beginning of its colonialisation, the new rural population aimed to change that. While usually, marshes are settled from the outside inwards, between 1750 and 1828, under the purview of the cultivation scheme, the Teufelsmoor was systematically transformed with almost grid-like precision, ramrod-straight channels and waterways being drawn along its length and breadth to allow for drainage, peat harvesting and transport. The more the water sunk, the more the channels were deepened, allowing for travel by the regionally characteristic peat barges (Rehder-Plümpe 2012).
About this Blog
This is the 20th blog post of the series of 24 blogs prepared by graduate students and early career professionals who shared their views on the future of heritage and landscape planning.
The writers of these blogposts participated in the Heriland Blended Intensive Programme “Heritage and the Planning of Landscapes” in October 2024 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
It was gruelling work for the people settling in the marshes. Often, it took a generation or more to cultivate enough land and income for a family to build proper houses and barns, rather than temporary dirt hovels, but over the course of a century, the region stabilised (Rehder-Plümpe 2012). In accordance with the marsh colonizers scheme, a number of characteristic row villages formed along the channels and with them infrastructure, a style of architecture and a proud culture (Müller-Scheeßel 2012). The ‘dumb bog’ had been conquered and transformed into the home of a people.
The Shape of the Problem
All in all, the history of the Teufelsmoor sounds like a success story. However, within the past century, it has become increasingly obvious that it is not. The reason for this lies within the ecological and environmental properties of wetlands.
In their natural state, wetlands are green carbon sinks. This means that contrary to most other ecosystems, in which composition and decomposition of biomass are nearly in balance, within wetlands the primary production of biomass outweighs the decomposition. Organic material accumulates and in the wet, oxygen-poor conditions, peat forms under great pressure (Dierssen and Nelle 2006). Because the organic material accumulates rather than being decomposed, carbon is stored within the ground instead of being released into the atmosphere. This makes wetlands into climate neutral to climate positive carbon sinks (Dierssen and Nelle 2006). While only covering 3% of the earth’s surface, in total, wetlands bind about 30% of terrestrial carbon (Drösler 2009).
This delicate balance tips, however, if the water levels in a marshland sink too low, be it through naturally occurring droughts or, as in this case, through systematic drainage. To fulfil its ecosystem functions, a wetland needs to be saturated with water to a level of about 10 cm below the surface. If this cannot be achieved, the bog becomes a massively problematic emitter of climate gasses instead (Drösler 2009).
The form of the issue the Teufelsmoor is dealing with begins to take shape: For almost 275 years, the former wetland has not been a carbon sink at all, but rather an emitter of staggering proportions. The yearly carbon emissions exceed the potential maximum capacity for carbon storage many times over (Drösler 2009).
On the Road to a Solution
With the climate crisis in mind, the scope of this ecological disaster is easy to imagine. While re-wetting the marsh is by now a tried and true practice and known to reduce carbon emissions, it is by far not a simple one; because it is not like the land is just sitting empty. The need for re-wetting the land threatens the livelihood of farmers all across the country. These are often already struggling economically and are thus simply unable to meet the demand the crisis puts forth (Kollenbroich 2022).
While the German government is both aware of the issue and has passed legislation addressing it, the practical implementation is caught up in a web of politics and economics. While model projects for land use transformation and cultivation of paludiculture on re-wetted moorlands, in addition to some opportunities for funding, have been put in place over the last decade, money remains one of the largest issues. Without the necessary financial support, a market for the goods that may be produced on wetlands in a re-natured state, and some sort of widespread political action, farmers cannot abandon their current practices. Many of them feel left alone and left behind, abandoned in their struggle to become sustainable while also not losing everything they have (Neckermann 2024).
Finding Space for the Cultural Dimension
Caught between the economic and the environmental, adding a cultural heritage dimension may at first seem idiosyncratic. However, it does make sense.
The ecological crisis in the wetlands impacts more than just the financial livelihood of the people living in the Teufelsmoor, it impacts their identity. An identity built on the cultivation of the wetland, on the hard work put into wresting a living from the moor, on the practices, craft and architecture that resulted from it. Rather than simply demanding the locals keep up with the time and fix the problem that was inadvertently caused almost 275 years ago, accessing the issue from a cultural heritage perspective and finding ways to work with the heritage and people of the region, becomes suddenly quite sensible.
Instead of turning their history into a point of shame and regret, trying to find a positive approach to the people and their heritage and to work on developing a landscape transformation in accordance with it, may be a way to overcome social hurdles in the very necessary process that needs to take place in the Teufelsmoor. If the cultural dimension can aid in furthering peoples access and positive engagement with the problem, a space for it should be found in the path to the solution for this ecological disaster we have at hand.
Bibliography
Bundesamt für Naturschutz (n. d.): Landschaftssteckbrief Teufelsmoor. In:https://www.bfn.de/landschaftssteckbriefe/teufelsmoor. Last accessed 03.11.2024.
Dierssen, Klaus; Nelle, Oliver (2006): Zustand, Wandel und Entwicklung europäischer Moorlandschaften. In: Hans-Rudolf Bork und Jürgen Hagedorn (Hg.): Der Wandel der Erdoberfläche im vergangenen Jahrtausend, p. 241–257.
Drösler, Matthias (2009): Was haben Moore mit dem Klima zu tun? In: Vegetationsmanagement und Renaturierung. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Jörg Pfadenhauer = Vegetation management and restoration. Unter Mitarbeit von Jörg Pfadenhauer. Laufen a. d. Salzach: ANL (Laufener Spezialbeiträge, 2009,2), p. 60–69.
Heinicke, Horst Hendrik (2012): Zur Zukunft der Findorff-Siedlungen – Auswirkungen des gesellschaftlichen Wandels auf die Siedlungsstrukturen. In: Dieter Weiser (Hg.): Die Findorff-Siedlungen im Teufelsmoor bei Worpswede. Ein Heimatbuch. Bremen: Ed. Temmen, p. 271–287.
Kollenbroich, Philipp (2022): Wie Herr Kück versucht, seine Heimat zu retten – und die Welt. Der Spiegel 2/2022. In:https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/klimaschutz-im-moor-wie-ein-landwirt-um-seine-existenz-fuerchtet-a-78c83bd5-9d2f-405e-b14c-b5e60deffeaf. Last accessed 03.11.2024.
Müller-Scheeßel, Karsten (2012): Die Geschichte der Moornutzung und die Entstehung der Findorff-Siedlungen. In: Dieter Weiser (Hg.): Die Findorff-Siedlungen im Teufelsmoor bei Worpswede. Ein Heimatbuch. Bremen: Ed. Temmen, p. 41–66.
Neckermann, Christa (2024): CO2-Speicher Teufelsmoor: Wie ein Landwirt den Klimaschutz vorantreibt. WeserKurier. In:https://www.weser-kurier.de/landkreis-osterholz/stadt-osterholz-scharmbeck/zukunft-des-moores-landwirtschaft-und-naturschutz-in-teufelsmoor-doc7tc6asxt0ua1dnppb3xu. Last accessed 03.11.2024.
Rehder-Plümpe, Johannes (2012): Die Struktur der Findorff-Siedlungen. In: Dieter Weiser (Hg.): Die Findorff-Siedlungen im Teufelsmoor bei Worpswede. Ein Heimatbuch. Bremen: Ed. Temmen, p. 94–123.
About the author
Kalle Trappe is a postgraduate student in Architectural Heritage Conservation at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, following their bachelor’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning. Their interests and work in spatial planning are on regional development and town planning, with a focus on the historical development of cities and landscapes. This Blog post is inspired by their participation in the Heriland Blended Intensive Program on “Heritage and Landscape Futures”, in Gothenburg, Sweden, in October 2024.