Nature and Geopark TERRA.vita

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Location of the nature and geopark TERRA.vita

The TERRA.vita nature and geopark , originally the Northern Teutoburg Forest-Wiehengebirge nature park , is a nature and geopark in the south-west of Lower Saxony and in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia . According to the "Association of German Nature Parks", the term TERRA.vita is intended to make it clear that "all origins come from the earth". This insight forms the "central thread" of the work of the sponsoring association.

The Nördlicher Teutoburger Wald - Wiehengebirge nature park was founded in 1962 and, with a total area of ​​around 1500 km², comprises the low mountain ranges of the Teutoburg Forest and the Wiehen Mountains (including the western edge of the Weser Mountains ) as well as most of the Osnabrück region (including some lower areas in the district Osnabrück ).

In 2001 TERRA.vita was the first German nature park to be recognized as a European Geopark. The park has been part of the UNESCO Geopark Network since 2004 . It only became a National Geopark in 2008. On November 17, 2015, it was officially recognized as a UNESCO Global Geopark by UNESCO. This recognition was extended for a further four years in September 2019.

The offices of the paid staff of the natural and Geoparks are located in the premises of the district house of the district Osnabrück.

Logo of the TERRA.vita nature park

Status and purpose

The nature and geopark as a whole was declared a landscape protection area in 1965 under its then name "Nature Park Nördlicher Teutoburger Wald - Wiehengebirge" (LSG OS 00001 and LSG OS-S 00023) . Several smaller landscape protection areas were removed from the large area after 1965 and form separate areas, e.g. B. the LSG "Börsteler Wald und Teichhausen" (LSG FFH295) set up in December 2018. In an article about TERRA.Vita, the city of Osnabrück emphasizes that it is important to designate landscapes as recreational areas, to ensure that they can fulfill this task and to successfully communicate this performance for sustainable tourism . Like all nature parks, the TERRA.vita park should "be planned, structured, developed and further developed taking into account the goals of nature conservation and landscape management."

According to its statutes (§ 2 Paragraph 1), the purpose of the sponsoring association is “to promote the nature park in cooperation with all interested parties with the aim of preserving and caring for the landscape in this area, which is particularly suitable as a recreation area, and the native animals - to protect flora and fauna and to enable natural, environmentally friendly recreation through suitable measures. "

organization

The TERRA.vita - Nature and Geopark Nördlicher Teutoburger Wald, Wiehengebirge, Osnabrücker Land e. V. According to the statutes, the association includes local authorities and tourism associations in the association's territory (Section 2, Paragraph 2 of the Articles of Association) as well as "natural [...] and legal [...] persons as well as associations of persons who are committed to the goals of the association" (Section 5 of the statutes). "The funds required to achieve the purpose of the association are raised through membership fees, donations and public grants" (§ 4 of the statutes).

geography

Northern area

Porta Westfalica breakthrough in the Weser

The northern part of the nature and geopark begins in the Hahnenmoor in Artland and extends from there in a south-easterly direction over the Ankumer Höhe to Bramsche . From there you can get to the southernmost area of ​​the Oldenburger Münsterland and the northeast of the Osnabrücker Land , which also belong to the TERRA.vita park. From Bramsche, the park spreads north of Osnabrück over the Wiehengebirge to the east and then over the Weser breakthrough Porta Westfalica even to the Bückeburg , which lies a little further to the east , which is already east of the Weser and north of the Weser Mountains ; thus his park area also extends into the north-western areas of the last-mentioned mountains.

Middle area

The middle area is characterized by Osnabrück with the Osnabrücker Bergland .

Southern area

The southern part of the nature and geopark is located in the northern Teutoburg Forest . It begins east of Hörstel and runs over the Tecklenburger Land and Bad Iburg in a south-east direction to Bielefeld .

and display information about the image
Panorama from the Varus Tower near Georgsmarienhütte

Individual mountains

Neighboring nature parks

To the north is the Dümmer Nature Park with Lake Dümmer and the Dammer Mountains , to the east of Bückeburg TERRA.vita borders the Weserbergland Nature Park . The Teutoburg Forest / Eggegebirge Nature Park is located southeast of Bielefeld . In the north-west near Herzlake, the Hümmling Nature Park is about 5 km away.

Geology and landscape

If the core of the park is characterized by typical low mountain range landscapes - with interesting geological fault lines ( anticline ), then in the north in the Ankumer Höhe area there are also terminal moraines from the Saale Ice Age . Post-Ice Age moors, e.g. B. the Great Moor with its southern foothills also belong to the landscape. About 70% of the park take up forest areas. Geologically, the park covers the geological ages from Carboniferous to Quaternary (geology) .

tourism

With the regional centers Osnabrück and Bielefeld, the park has two important cities as contact and information points. Two long-distance hiking trails over the ridges of the Wiehengebirge (namely the Wittekindsweg supervised by the Wiehengebirgsverband Weser-Ems ) and the Teutoburg Forest (namely the Hermannsweg supervised by the Teutoburger-Wald-Verein ) allow an intensive exploration of the park, which like no other makes it possible to experience different landscape forms . 300 million years of geological history can be experienced live here. Since 2006, the easier road of the megalithic called scenic route from Osnabrück to Oldenburg drivers the way to the in TERRA.vita region and north of that very frequent stone-age megalithic tombs. Since 2013 the street has been a “Megalithic Routes” called Cultural Route of the Council of Europe . In the Osnabrücker Land, the Hünenweg hiking trail runs roughly parallel to the holiday route. The history of the earth can also be experienced through the 150 million year old dinosaur tracks in Bad Essen- Barkhausen, mining museums, visitor mines in Osnabrück, the Dörenther cliffs near Ibbenbüren and the Weser breakthrough near Porta Westfalica. Large ice age boulders complete the story. A special feature is the Olderdissen home zoo located in the TERRA.vita area in Bielefeld.

In 2017 the Wiehengebirgsverband Weser-Ems gave up the sponsorship for the Hünenweg and handed it over to the tourism associations Emsland and Osnabrücker Land. TERRA.vita has been organizing the “new Hünenweg” project since then, which is characterized by a better visualization of the path in the landscape and partly by a new route. In April 2018 the “new Hünenweg” was officially opened. The Hünenweg is to be extended to the Netherlands (to Groningen ). The Geoparks TERRA.vita and “ De Hondsrug ” are cooperating on this project. Both institutions want to "enhance" their award by UNESCO through the "anchor project Hünenweg / Hondsrugpad ".

Museums

The following museums offer interesting insights into the geocultural development of the region:

Picture gallery

criticism

The northwesternmost branch of the TERRA.vita area is in the natural area of Bersenbrücker Land , of which it occupies the southwestern half. In its “profile” for the Bersenbrücker Land, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation criticizes that the “effective protection share” there is only three percent and that “the share of the areas covered in the biotope mapping is low”. Two thirds of the area are used for arable farming and there is hardly any grassland. There are hardly any deciduous forests, instead coniferous forests dominate. The BfN counts the Bersenbrücker Land in the “area around Vechta ”, one of the “centers of factory farming in Germany”.

The BfN is particularly interested in extensive biotope networks in Germany. With regard to this criterion, it rates 73 percent of the area of ​​the Bersenbrücker Land natural area as a “deficit area”. An area designated “only” as a landscape protection area is not considered to be “effectively protected” by the BfN. In fact, protected landscape areas are often in practice only capable of preventing the spread of cultivations (which is why larger settlements are not part of the Terra Vita area), but not forms of agriculture such as factory farming or large-scale soil degradation.

The city of Osnabrück admits that decades old “ordinances of the landscape protection areas no longer meet the need for protection of the landscape and the requirements of a modern landscape protection area ordinance” and that the central landfill Piesberg and a rock mining company located there are actually not with the purpose of the LSG “Piesberg - Haster Berg - Kleeberg ”(LSG OS-S 00004) are compatible. However, the layout of the LSG was designed with a view to the agreed time after the end of the landfill operations and the quarrying.

In the “master plan” from 2015 (p. 17) it is pointed out that the TERRA.vita eV will have to place particular emphasis on the quality assurance of the existing infrastructure with reference to geological history due to “its limited human and financial resources [...] .

See also

Web links

Commons : Nature and Geopark TERRA.vita  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association of German Nature Parks V .: TERRA.VITA . Retrieved November 22, 2019
  2. ↑ German UNESCO Commission : UNESCO Geopark TERRA.vita - life course of the earth . Retrieved November 21, 2019
  3. ↑ Nature and Geopark TERRA.vita: Organization (map of the TERRA.vita area) , accessed on July 24, 2018
  4. ^ European Geoparks. Retrieved March 30, 2014 .
  5. ↑ a b Landkreis Osnabrück information. Retrieved March 30, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Unesco Portal (archive version). Archived from the original on December 5, 2014 ; accessed on December 23, 2015 .
  7. ↑ National Geopark Homepage. Retrieved March 30, 2014 .
  8. ↑ Terra-Vita in the Osnabrücker Land remains Unesco Geopark , noz.de, October 13, 2019.
  9. ↑ Nature and Geopark TERRA.vita: Team , accessed on July 24, 2018
  10. ↑ District of Osnabrück: Ordinance on the landscape protection area "Börsteler Wald und Teichhausen" in the municipality of Berge, Samtgemeinde Fürstenau, district of Osnabrück from December 17 , 2018 , § 12 Paragraph 2, accessed on November 20, 2019
  11. ^ City of Osnabrück: Nature parks . Retrieved November 19, 2019
  12. ↑ a b Unesco Terravita. Retrieved March 30, 2014 .
  13. ↑ Alexandra Lüders: Opening in Giersfeld - the completely renewed "Hünenweg" leads via Ankum to Meppen . noz.de . May 1, 2018, accessed July 24, 2018.
  14. ↑ TERRA.vita Nature and Geopark: Cooperation between the UNESCO Global Geoparks De Hondsrug (NL) and TERRA.vita (D) . July 20, 2018, accessed July 24, 2018.
  15. ^ Federal Agency for Nature Conservation: Landscape profile 58500 Bersenbrücker Land . Retrieved November 19, 2019
  16. ↑ Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN): Table of deficit areas in the transnational biotope network . 2010, accessed June 11, 2020
  17. ↑ z. B. Josef Klausing: Natural resources (in the municipality of Merzen) . naturade.de, accessed on November 19, 2019
  18. ^ City of Osnabrück: Landscape protection areas . Retrieved November 21, 2019

Coordinates: 52 ° 16 '  N , 8 ° 21'  E