Land acquisition project: Seeländereien bei Frose
Wetland complex
Saxony-Anhalt

"Cuckoo, cuckoo" calls from the reedbeds

Landscape type (Biotope)

The approx. 75.0 ha large wetland complex Seeländereien bei Frose in the Salzland district, Saxony-Anhalt is located centrally in intensively used farmland countryside. It has been a protected biotope since 2012 under the relevant nature conservation regulations.

After years of dehydration due to the two opencast lignite mines operating nearby until German reunification, the wetland complex owes its re-emergence to the closure of the opencast mines and the pumping stations.

Threat factors

As a result of climate change, the structures of the wetland and the range of occurring wildlife species vary as the transformation of the wetland takes place. In extreme cases, the wetland becomes a wet to dry grass and scrubland with new varieties of wildlife species adapting to it... this is pure natural dynamics!

The wetland may also be affected by the planning of the responsible regional water engineering authority for the improvement (expansion) of the main drainage ditch that borders the wetland biotope over a length of some 600 m.

The reason for and the aims of conservation

The extensive newly created shallow-water reed areas offer an ideal breeding, feeding and resting habitat for many species of birds that have become rare elsewhere. These include the Ferruginous Duck, Eurasian Teal, Northern Marsh Harrier, Eurasian Bittern, Common Reed Bunting, Sedge Warbler, Eurasian Penduline Tit, Bearded Reedling and European Bee-eater. The Common Cuckoo in particular benefits from a large number of host bird nests in the reed beds in which it can lay its eggs.

Every year, millions of migratory birds commute thousands of kilometres between their breeding and wintering grounds. To be able to negotiate these flight routes successfully, migratory birds are dependent on suitable stopover and feeding biotopes such as the Seeländereien bei Frose, and these must offer water bodies, habitat diversity and be largely undisturbed by human activity.

Permanent protection, preservation, and further development of this especially valuable wetland complex, the only one of its kind far and wide, and the exclusion of any future agricultural use and construction of alternative energy facilities.

Our project commitment

Many bird species that reside, stopover and forage here during migration are on the Saxony-Anhalt and German Red Lists. Here, in the middle of intensively used farmland, they find an important valuable survival space and a diversely structured landscape characterised by its wetland resources.

Our goal is the sustainable protection and preservation of this habitat and its designated upgrading to a nature reserve (according to Para. 23 of the Federal Nature Protection Law). In this respect, on 18 December 2013, we submitted a formal application to the responsible environment ministry of the state of Saxony-Anhalt and the regional nature conservation authority.

To lend our demand more emphasis and weight, we have purchased more than 26.0 ha (260,000 m²) of land in the Seeländereien bei Frose wetland biotope complex since 2013, thereby permanently reinforcing the protection of this unique part of the landscape.

With the aim of interesting even more people and making them enthusiastic about the protection of this wetland and its biodiversity, and also to end uncontrolled, disturbing bird watching activities, in spring 2020, with the approval of the nature conservation and building authorities of the Salzland district, we erected an 8 m high birdwatching tower on our Zuckerbusch plot in the centre of the biotope complex. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, it has already become a visitor magnet for young and old from near and far.

We are constantly involved in buying more plots of land in the biotope complex.

Dominant species (Fauna/Flora)

Ferruginous Duck, Eurasian Bittern, Little Crake, European Bee-eater, Eurasian Reed Warbler

Your donation helps us to purchase further ecologically-valuable plots of land.