Environmental protection always sounds quite simple on paper: unseal a few areas quickly, build a green housing estate or renaturate water bodies. But anyone who deals with such projects knows that it takes years, sometimes even decades, to implement a project like this.
Nevertheless, they exist – also in NRW. For the Earth Day let’s introduce three of them.
Wilderness and kingfisher: renaturation of the Ruhr near Arnsberg
In the 1960s, her water was foaming because gallons of detergent were pouring into the river. For decades, pesticides poisoned the dysentery. Up until the 80s it was a brown broth. She was channelled, immured in a stern bed. That was once.
Today the Ruhr near Arnsberg is a meandering river with gravel banks. As far as possible, it has been restored to its original state. It took 20 years to renaturate the Ruhr. The state and city have invested 15.5 million euros in the project. The model was an old postcard from 1905.
There are pebble islands again in the middle of the river. The Ruhr has become wider and home to an entire ecosystem. Plants, insects – the floodplain is coming back above and below the water. The fish population is recovering. That makes the kingfisher happy too.
We also report on this topic today in the current hour.