European Green Belt

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

The European Green Belt initiative is a grassroots movement for nature conservation and sustainable development along the corridor of the former Iron Curtain. The term refers to an environmental initiative as well as the area it concerns. The initiative is carried out under the patronage of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and formerly Mikhail Gorbachev. It is the aim of the initiative to create the backbone of an ecological network that runs from the Barents to the Black and Adriatic Seas.

The European Green Belt as an area follows the route of the former Iron Curtain and connects national parks, nature parks, biosphere reserves and transboundary protected areas as well as non-protected valuable habitats along or across the (former) borders.[1]

  1. ^ Riecken, U., K. Ullrich, A. Lang (2007): A vision for the Green Belt in Europe, in: Terry, A., K. Ullrich and U. Riecken (Eds.): The Green Belt of Europe. From Vision to Reality, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK, ISBN 2-8317-0945-8