Increasing land pressure in agriculture is leading to a steady loss of biotopes and an increasing isolation of species and their habitats. This situation also affects species-rich grassland. Particularly in the intensively farmed northwestern German lowlands, species-rich grasslands are in sharp decline.
A group of project partners has succeeded in counteracting this trend. Involving stakeholders from science, nature conservation, agriculture, lower administrative authorities as well as landowners and farmers, the goal was to preserve and develop still existing grassland areas and, above all, to connect them via a biotope network. To this end, areas in the districts of Ammerland, Oldenburg and Wesermarsch were selected on the basis of the animal and plant species present and networked via so-called stepping stone biotopes and corridors with the help of seeding and reseeding with regional seed, mulch transfer and modified maintenance concepts. The inclusion of landscape elements such as dikes, dams, watercourse and roadside edges, and forest margins was a key focus. The focus was on the species groups vascular plants, butterflies and grasshoppers.
After only two to three years, most stepping stone and corridor areas showed a higher species and individual richness than other grassland areas. They thus provide an improved food base, for example for the examined butterflies. In all three regions, it was also possible to include numerous other areas outside the pilot areas in the biotope network through concentrated public relations work. The project, which runs until March 2021, was implemented by the Grassland Center of Lower Saxony/Bremen e. V., the University of Oldenburg, NABU Oldenburger Land and the Lower Saxony Chamber of Agriculture. It has already been awarded as a UN Decade Project for Biodiversity in 2019.
More about the project as well as a brochure with recommendations for action and the final report can be found at: https://www.gruenlandzentrum.org/projekte/biotopverbund-grasland/
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
