Border Valley Bog

Border valley moor between Recknitz and Trebel

Old peat cut in the Grenztalmoor

The Grenztalmoor , also called Rauhes Moor , is a low moor area with a centrally located rain moor . It is located in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania border valley between the cities of Bad Sülze and Tribsees . The Grenztalmoor lies on the valley watershed between the Recknitz in the west and the Trebel in the east. In the area, also known as the Tribseer Pass , the ground level is 2 m above sea level, in the Recknitztal near Bad Sülze it is 1 m, in the Trebel valley a total of less than 2 m, but on a small area even below zero. The peak water levels in the trenches at the edge of the moor and at times also in the moor are or were about 1.5 m above sea level. NHN, less than the highest water level measured since 1973 in the Trebel near Tribsees of 1.63 m above sea level.

history

After the end of the Vistula Ice Age, spring bogs formed in the border valley , from which large-scale flow bogs later emerged. In the central, nutrient-poor area, a rain bog emerged at the beginning of our era . This gradually spread over an area of several hundred hectares and reached a recent peat thickness of up to one meter, until the bog growth was stopped by human intervention.

In the Middle Ages, the border between Mecklenburg and the Principality of Rügen ran through the moor , and since the middle of the 14th century with Pomerania . The moor was not drained until the end of the 17th century, as shown by a map of the area known as “Hard Moor” from the Swedish land survey . On the Pomeranian side, extensive drainage work was carried out from 1757 and, especially in the 19th century, large-scale peeling of the rain moor near Tribsees. Other uses were only made to a limited extent.

A peat fire broke out in the 1950s. Since that time, pines and birches have been able to settle, which, thanks to the drainage carried out in the area until 1997, were able to develop into a forest. In 1967, by resolution of the Rostock District Council, an area of over 400 hectares was declared a nature reserve. Since the mid-1990s, extensive measures to rewet the border valley moor with the aim of revitalizing the rain moor have been carried out as part of the moor protection project ( EU-LIFE ) of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

The moor can be accessed by a hiking trail from Tribsees.

Vegetation and wildlife

The moor birch and pine forest, which is untypical for rain bogs and into which oaks and mountain ash have also migrated, is to be pushed back by the rewetting. Special plant species that occur in the Grenztalmoor are swamp porst , bell heather , crowberry , round-leaved sundew and medium-sized peat moss . King fern occurs in moderately nutrient-rich locations .

In particular, occur in mammalian species deer , deer and wild boar on. Adders used to be so numerous that they were collected in the 1950s to obtain immune serum . Studies carried out in the 1990s showed that these reptiles can still be found in the border valley moor alongside grass snakes , slow worms and wood lizards . Earlier reports of pond turtles have not yet been confirmed. Moor frogs and common toads are common . In addition to other frog species, numerous moisture-loving butterflies were found.

channels

From Bad Sülze the citizen moat was built in 1744 . This was used to transport the peat cut by small farmers or Klen citizens to the salt works.

In 1813, a shipping route from the Recknitz to the Trebel was built with the Prahm Canal on the northern edge of the moor. On the site of the saline, the Recknitz, which today (again) has a water level of 40 to 50 cm above sea level, was dammed by about one meter, which also enabled the operation of a water wheel. This enabled water to be diverted from the upper reaches into the canal. It flowed across the natural watershed towards Trebel. For the ascent and descent of the Prahme there were wooden locks on the other side of the watershed in two places. The upper one was on the road from Sülze to Tribsees, which crossed the canal with a bascule bridge, the lower one at the mouth of the canal in the Trebel. The canal led through the middle of the moor from the salt works to the upper lock. The lock chambers of 20 m × 5 m were matched to the dimensions of the peat frame. The canal enabled the salt works in Sülze to burn peat from the Trebel valley and, in turn, made it easier to market the salt. A lock in Sülze, which would have enabled continuous journeys from the lower Recknitz to the Peene region, cannot be found in the maps of the 19th century. After the saltworks ceased operations in 1906, the canal quickly fell into disrepair. In the 1950s there were plans to give the port of Rostock, the most important sea port in the GDR, a connection to inland shipping. This Recknitz-Trebel-Peene Canal would also have included an efficient connection between Recknitz and Trebel. After initial work on a section of the canal in the Trebel valley, the plans were abandoned in the early 1960s.

In the course of the renaturation measures, several trenches were interrupted in 1996 and 2000. The ditch that emerged from the Prahm Canal has now been completely abandoned, but its course can still be seen in the terrain, apart from a few interruptions. The drainage ditch north of the moor no longer has a connection to the Trebel, and its confluence with the Recknitz was relocated upstream. The former connection south of the moor, at the same time draining a sand pit, only has a connection to the Trebel. A temporary melioration channel through the middle of the moor was completely abandoned.

literature

Dieter Gremer, Dierk Michaelis: NSG "Rauhes Moor" in the border valley . In: Greifswalder Geographical Works . Vol. 30, Landscape Ecological Excursions in the Greifswald Area , Greifswald 2003, ISBN 3-86006-215-8 , pp. 43–47. ( Digital copy , PDF )

André Bönsel, Michael Runze: The importance of project-accompanying success controls in the revitalization of a rain bog through hydraulic engineering measures . In: Nature and Landscape . Volume 80, Issue 4, 2005, ISSN 0028-0615 , pp. 154-160. ( Digital copy , PDF )

Environment Ministry Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Hrsg.): Grenztalmoor 80 in: The nature reserves in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Demmler-Verlag, Schwerin 2003, p. 230 f.