Yesterday, a delegation of the LIFE Wadden Sea Birds project has visited the Dümmer. The aim of this LIFE project is to establish and manage bird habitats in the Danish and German Wadden Sea. The project consortium comprises partners from the Danish Tønder municipality, the Nature Conservation Foundation of Schlewsig-Holstein, the Danish Wadden Sea National Park Administration, The Danish Nature Fund, and the Wadden Sea Nature Agency, and the special focus of their visit was on wet grassland management and predation control. Lower Saxony's most recent LIFE project on meadow birds, LIFE Godwit Flyway, interprets predation management as an important measure in support of grassland breeding bird conservation.
Marcel Holy from the Natur- und Umweltschutzvereinigung Dümmer e. V. (NUVD, Association for the Conservation of Nature and Environment at Lake Dümmer) gave an introductory presentation, before the delegation made an excursion into the Ochsenmoor. On site, the visitors witnessed and discussed key topics like rewetting, grassland management, habitat optimisation, goal conflicts and predation management (by trapping, night hunting, and other methods) in detail. At the end of the day the delegation continued their trip to another large grassland area in Northern Germany, the Blockland in Bremen. Exchange and transfer of knowledge is an important European research and conservation strategy in general, and an important pillar within the LIFE funding scheme of the European Union.
