http://subtopia.blogspot.com/2008/05/where-truces-and-cease-fires-grow-on.html
Link: Subtopia: where truces and cease fires grow on trees….
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"Up until now the German Green Belt has had very little legal protection, and while it still has a long ways to go, Spiegel reports that the groundwork for a new agreement between the federal Government and the local German states which directly assume responsibility for the Green Belt have reached some form of legal outlines for its protection. Currently, only a third of the natural corridor is designated a nature conservation area, but that could soon be increased. The Green Belt itself though is of great interest.
The no-man's-land that emerged, ranging from 60 to 200 meters wide, provided the ideal conditions for the flourishing of flora and fauna. Up to 600 endangered species, including the black stork and the lady's slipper orchid, thrived in this unusual terrain.
What has made this green corridor remarkable is the interlocking of over 100 types of biotopes, including forests, fens and meadows. Hubert Weiger, president of BUND, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday that "in other places species become extinct because their habitats shrink to islands due urban sprawl." According to Geidezis this is unique in Central Europe. "You don't find these connecting biotopes in Europe any more. Most have been split up, preventing animals from traveling from place to place."
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What if somehow in a great show of geopolitical magic all of the border fences, boundary walls and separation barriers that callous the world’s neighborly skin suddenly vanished? Miles of scrappy national security architecture just dissolved in a great disappearing act leaving only trails of dirt behind on its barren stage. And then, over the course of a few years, filling in these tracts of severed farms and semi-conquered wetlands, of annexed soils and halved rural pasturtopias, new post-conflict species of borderzone flora and fauna colored in the rugged footprints with epic flourishes of greenery....
