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Project of the Month

With your help, we can create a lifesaving island of survival for long-billed birds on Eiderstedt!

Only 10 years ago, the Eiderstedt peninsula was a perfect foraging and breeding paradise for meadow birds and Black Terns: the damp soil was soft, and the meadow birds could successfully poke for worms with their long beaks. The ditches contained clean water, which was home to Sticklebacks and dragonfly larvae, and Black Terns could dive down to catch their food. Meadows and pastures had no electric fences but were full of flowers and flowering grasses. It was a perfect habitat for insects and beetles and, at the same time, a richly laid table for meadow birds ...

But today, unfortunately, things look very different in northern Germany. After six hours of driving criss-cross across the peninsula, several walks to visit meadows, ditches and weirs, and crossing the dyke at the historic Westerheversand lighthouse, we were pretty exhausted and asked ourselves: "Where has all the beauty of nature gone?"

The meadows were dry, the pitiful remains of the ditch water were brown-black and stank to high heaven. Electric fences kept the cattle away from the ditches, which were overgrown with reeds and bushes and thus no longer usable as a feeding habitat, especially for Black Terns. The situation is alarming for the Eiderstedt population of long-billed wetland birds, including Eurasian Oystercatchers, Northern Lapwings, Common Redshanks, and Common Snipe, as well as the elegant Black Terns.

A nature-loving couple from the region strongly recommended that we purchase an 8.9-hectare (89,000 m²) meadow plot – for which the owners had already received a very attractive purchase offer from a solar park investor. But after intensive discussions with us, the owners were willing to meet our Foundation halfway on price, given our concrete interest in purchasing and our prompt decision to buy. Our personal experience and the in-depth information provided by the Eiderstedt couple about the existential threat to long-billed meadow birds and northern migratory birds encouraged us to purchase the 8.9-hectare (89,000 m²) meadow plot in the far north of Germany, including the surrounding ditches.

Unfortunately, due to the massive demand for wind turbine and solar park sites, land purchase prices up here on the North Sea coast are only going in one direction: extremely steeply upwards.

The total purchase cost, including all fees, for the 89,000 m² meadow plot amounts to an impressive €415,000. After checking our cash flow, we can use approximately €305,000 from reserves and a testamentary bequest. However, despite all our financial efforts, we will only be able to raise the remaining €110,000 if you support us with a generous Christmas and New Year project donation. Every amount helps, thank you very much!

Thereafter, we can transform the meadow land, which is ideally located for meadow bird conservation and has high ecological development potential for endangered meadow birds, into a wetland paradise with new small pools and open ditches. In this way, we can work together to create a lifesaving wetland habitat on the Eiderstedt peninsula for many long-billed birds that are endangered and, in some cases, already threatened with extinction.

Status of Eiderstedt's meadow bird population: