6 Transcending the Cold War: Borders, Nature, and the European Green Belt Conservation Project along the Former Iron Curtain
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Astrid M. Eckert
Abstract
This chapter highlights the connections between borders and the natural environment, taking the European Green Belt as an example. It highlights the project’s dual origins along the Finnish-Russian and the inter-German border. The authors argue that the opportunities for nature protection provided by the end of the Cold War and the subsequent push for European integration are best understood if considered alongside a parallel paradigm shift in nature conservation itself: a move towards the creation of ecological networks and corridors that required transboundary cooperation. This chapter addresses this synchronism in a case study of transboundary conservation along the Czech, German, and Austrian borders, focusing on the national parks of the Bavarian Forest/Šumava and Thayatal/Podyji´. The European Green Belt ‘invented’ neither transboundary collaboration nor ecological networks, but its symbolic valence as a profoundly European space, both in historical and political terms, has made it a prime example of these approaches and has helped popularize them.
Abstract
This chapter highlights the connections between borders and the natural environment, taking the European Green Belt as an example. It highlights the project’s dual origins along the Finnish-Russian and the inter-German border. The authors argue that the opportunities for nature protection provided by the end of the Cold War and the subsequent push for European integration are best understood if considered alongside a parallel paradigm shift in nature conservation itself: a move towards the creation of ecological networks and corridors that required transboundary cooperation. This chapter addresses this synchronism in a case study of transboundary conservation along the Czech, German, and Austrian borders, focusing on the national parks of the Bavarian Forest/Šumava and Thayatal/Podyji´. The European Green Belt ‘invented’ neither transboundary collaboration nor ecological networks, but its symbolic valence as a profoundly European space, both in historical and political terms, has made it a prime example of these approaches and has helped popularize them.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- On the “Contemporary European History” Handbook Series IX
- 1 Introduction: Writing a European History of Environmental Protection 1
-
I Conserving Nature
- 2 Counting Birds: Protecting European Avifauna and Habitats 17
- 3 Europe and its Environmental Other(s): Imagining Natures for “Global” Conservation 47
- 4 Restoring, Reintroducing, Rewilding: Creating European Wilderness 73
- 5 Protecting Eurofisch: An Environmental History of the European Eel and its Europeanness 101
- 6 Transcending the Cold War: Borders, Nature, and the European Green Belt Conservation Project along the Former Iron Curtain 129
-
II Preserving Livelihoods
- 7 Transforming Woodlands: European Forest Protection in a Global Context 157
- 8 Travelling (Western) Europe: Tourism, Regional Development, and Nature Protection 185
- 9 Moving Mountains: The Protection of the Alps 217
- 10 Negotiating the Maritime Commons: Protecting the Baltic Sea in a European Context 243
- 11 Recycling Europe’s Domestic Wastes: The Hope of “Greening” Mass Consumption through Recycling 269
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III Sustaining Environments
- 12 Visualizing the Invisible: Communicating Europe’s Environment 305
- 13 Revealing Risks: European Moments in Nuclear Politics and the Anti-Nuclear Movement 331
- 14 Combatting “Acid Rain”: Protecting the Common European Sky 363
- 15 Developing Europe: The Formation of Sustainability Concepts and Activities 389
- 16 Europeanizing Biodiversity: International Organizations as Environmental Actors 419
- 17 Epilogue: The Nature of Europe 447
- List of Contributors 451
- Index 455
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- On the “Contemporary European History” Handbook Series IX
- 1 Introduction: Writing a European History of Environmental Protection 1
-
I Conserving Nature
- 2 Counting Birds: Protecting European Avifauna and Habitats 17
- 3 Europe and its Environmental Other(s): Imagining Natures for “Global” Conservation 47
- 4 Restoring, Reintroducing, Rewilding: Creating European Wilderness 73
- 5 Protecting Eurofisch: An Environmental History of the European Eel and its Europeanness 101
- 6 Transcending the Cold War: Borders, Nature, and the European Green Belt Conservation Project along the Former Iron Curtain 129
-
II Preserving Livelihoods
- 7 Transforming Woodlands: European Forest Protection in a Global Context 157
- 8 Travelling (Western) Europe: Tourism, Regional Development, and Nature Protection 185
- 9 Moving Mountains: The Protection of the Alps 217
- 10 Negotiating the Maritime Commons: Protecting the Baltic Sea in a European Context 243
- 11 Recycling Europe’s Domestic Wastes: The Hope of “Greening” Mass Consumption through Recycling 269
-
III Sustaining Environments
- 12 Visualizing the Invisible: Communicating Europe’s Environment 305
- 13 Revealing Risks: European Moments in Nuclear Politics and the Anti-Nuclear Movement 331
- 14 Combatting “Acid Rain”: Protecting the Common European Sky 363
- 15 Developing Europe: The Formation of Sustainability Concepts and Activities 389
- 16 Europeanizing Biodiversity: International Organizations as Environmental Actors 419
- 17 Epilogue: The Nature of Europe 447
- List of Contributors 451
- Index 455
