The pool is quiet again. Just recently, around 1200 goldfish had romped about in a small pond in the southern Fröttmaninger Heide. These not only created a visual contrast to the gray gravel all around, but also created a problematic imbalance in the sensitive flora and fauna of the nature reserve not far from the Allianz Arena. Time and again, people expose animals there, thereby endangering a sensitive ecosystem. Area manager Tobias Maier, walking barefoot in sandals even in winter, crouches down and inspects the freshly cleaned pond. Clear to the ground. “When it’s cloudy, aquatic plants don’t get sunlight,” he explains.
If fish settle where they shouldn’t, they stir up mud and impair the habitat of aquatic plants. The biologist finds a piece of dense fish or pondweed on the bank, groenlandia densawhich is classified as endangered in Bavaria. Now it can grow again undisturbed. According to Maier, the goldfish that lived here for a short time were “lucky”: at the end of November a delegation from the Garching fishing club arrived in the Heide. Helpers pumped out the pond, anaesthetized the fish with electricity, collected them and moved them to the Garching town pond.
1200 released goldfish were found in a pond and had to be fished.
(Photo: Tobias Maier)
The goldfish campaign is symptomatic of a not unproblematic development in the heathland. At the beginning of the pandemic, more people came to the southern Fröttmaninger Heide and left their mark. “At the beginning of last year the number of visitors quadrupled,” says Maier. The 347 hectare area is home to 350 different, sometimes rare, plant species. The limestone grassland of the heather is the nutrient-poor reason for an unusual biodiversity, on which the largest population of green toads in Bavaria, rare butterflies and typical bird species find their place. In the past year, the brood of birds from the ground-nesters, who build their nests directly on the ground, almost completely failed due to the influx of visitors. A problem for the grasslands are dogs running freely, which endanger the toad spawn or bird nests. “Two dogs could destroy a limestone lawn the size of Marienplatz in a year,” said Tobias Maier in a recent lecture for the State Association for Bird Protection. “Dogs and nature conservation just don’t go well together.”
Christine Joas is the managing director of the Heath Area Association, which acquired the area from the German Armed Forces in 2007. The A 99 motorway bypass divides the Fröttmaninger Heide into a northern section, which is still used by the Bundeswehr, and the southern, partially accessible section. Taken together, it is the largest still preserved river gravel heather in southern Germany. Joas’ association built the Heidehaus, an “information and education center” and a nature trail at the southern entrance. “You should stay on the paths,” recommends Joas, not only for nature conservation reasons, but above all for safety reasons. For a good 200 years, units of the Bavarian Army, the Wehrmacht, the US Army and, most recently, the German Armed Forces trained on the former pasture area. What remained were bombs, mines and other remains of ammunition, some of which are still underground today. Only 17 percent of the entire area, including a 22-kilometer network of trails, has been defused. Work should continue next year. The demunition of 58 hectares has cost two million euros so far.
Fishing and relocating: The goldfish came to the Garching town pond.
(Photo: private)
A large part of the heather is a protected zone that is closed all year round
A board at the entrance to the heath shows schematically the paths and zones on which visitors are allowed to move freely. The “zone for the heather experience” may not be entered during the breeding season from March to July. A large part of the heather is a protected zone that is closed all year round. The secured and accessible zones – marked in green on the map – only look like a fraction of the area, but, according to Joas, are overall larger than an average city park.
Staying on the paths: This is of benefit to animals and humans alike.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
“There are people who think they have to be in charge here, even though they don’t own the area,” says Tobias Maier, pointing to the markings on the wayside that were only set up last year. The panels on the wooden pegs separating the safe path from the potentially dangerous area were torn down by strangers soon after they were installed.
Hanna Kokorsch from the Heide Interest Group condemns the vandalism, but is not surprised at the resentment of some visitors. For them, the division of the demmunitioned road network sometimes acts “more like a chicane than a serious regulation”. The IG Heide campaigned for the interests of the neighbors in a three-year public participation process around the creation of the current usage concept. Among other things, she has achieved an exemption from the dog leash requirement, which is possible under special conditions. “We don’t want a park for the dogs here,” explains Kokorsch, “but in winter you should be able to let the dog run free”. She particularly criticizes the establishment of the “Heideblick”, a kind of viewing platform over the restricted area. The wooded wall pierced for this purpose is actually used by the residents as a noise protection against the nearby motorway.
The biotope is unique, also because it is so close to the urban settlement area.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
Diverse and sometimes contradicting demands on urban open spaces are a well-known problem. “In general, conflicts of use in urban regions have increased considerably in recent years,” explains Dieter Rink, urban sociologist at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research. This is due, on the one hand, to “pressure to use” fueled by the pandemic and to increased “efforts to protect green and open spaces”. The Heath Area Association also looks after a popular local recreation area with a subway connection and a Natura 2000 area. “The nature conservation quality in the area must not deteriorate,” says Christine Joas.
If protected animal species are knowingly endangered, this has legal consequences for sponsoring organizations and states. In 2016, the European Court of Justice found the Greek government guilty of the endangered sea turtle caretta caretta Not having adequate protection from cars parked on the beach and bitumen-coated paths. The domestic green toad is one of 13 amphibians in Appendix IV of the Flora-Fauna-Habitat Directive and thus enjoys one of the highest protection ranks in Germany.
Christine Joas, managing director of the Heideflächenverein, knows that the situation in the Heide must not worsen.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
In the environmental education zone around the Heidehaus, visitors can see what was found under the Heide in the course of demunitioning: concrete lamp posts that now line the paths. Concrete blocks that have recently been placed on an old foundation as seating. Thick concrete posts that are artificially arranged like gigantic gray skeletons on purple-yellow lichen. “It doesn’t fit the landscape that people are locked out,” says Tobias Maier.
A truck manufacturer still makes guided “care trips” on the Heidewegen to this day
The development of the southern Fröttmaninger Heide is a story of the sometimes peaceful, sometimes brutal coexistence of humans and animals, of town and nature. The use as pastureland for sheep and other small animals, which continues to this day, prevents the area from being forested and preserves the species-rich lawn. The tank furrows, which are distributed over the whole area, created the perfect habitat for the green toad, which was lost when the Isar floodplains were channeled. A truck manufacturer still makes guided “care trips” on the secured paths of the heather, which press the earth into place and prevent the toad puddles from seeping away too quickly.
Nature recovers – if you let it.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger / Alessandra Schellnegger)
Tobias Maier observes that new animal species such as the grass snake have recently appeared in the heather. “It works a bit jerkily at the moment,” says Maier, summing up the situation on the heath. Even so, he does not want to be pessimistic about the future of the area. “It would be good if people would stick to the route all year round.” At the end of the year, area manager Tobias Maier gave up the southern Fröttmaninger Heide “for private reasons” and took care of his five other protected landscapes in the north of Munich. His successor, who will be presented at the beginning of 2022, will only be responsible for the heath on the outskirts of Munich, because the special nature reserve is not only home to rare toads and limestone grasslands, but above all a place of compromise.