A heron poses against the backdrop of the Berlin TV Tower
The now so fashionable work 'on remote' has affected many, notes Deutsche Welle. Ornithologist Toni Becker and biologist Julia Kionka prefer their usual workplace – in the midst of the wild nature of a big city. Today, for example, it's the Stralau neighborhood in eastern Berlin – an elongated peninsula in the floodplain of the Spree River, from one bank of which the famous Treptower Park is visible, and from the other – the former industrial port of the Rummelsburg district.
In recent years, a yacht port and residential complexes have appeared here. It's quiet and green – a paradise not only for young families with small children, but also for animals. And a two-hour walk around the neighborhood accompanied by 'urban nature rangers' Julia Kionka and Toni Becker turns into an excursion on the topic of biodiversity and ecology.
Berlin is considered one of the greenest capitals in Europe, almost a third of the city's territory is covered with greenery or water; the city has over 20,000 biological species. Experts sometimes call big cities 'hot spots' of biodiversity.
At the end of May, the Berlin authorities launched a two-year pilot project, within which 'urban nature rangers' should help citizens better understand not only the diversity of flora and fauna, but also realize their responsibility for its preservation. The project is implemented by the city's Nature Conservation Foundation (Stiftung Naturschutz Berlin), founded back in 1981.
Two dozen rangers with binoculars and cameras regularly patrol all 12 urban districts of Berlin. Task number one is monitoring urban nature. After all, in Berlin not only people but also animals are increasing. However, this fact does not please specialists: animals and birds flock to megacities not from a good life. As Julia Kionka says, due to the massive use of pesticides in agriculture, insects die, food chains are disrupted, and as a result, animals move in search of food to where there is something to eat and where it is not so noisy.
This is one aspect common to all German cities. But there is a second one, specific to Berlin. According to Toni Becker, the riot of Berlin's nature is partly due to its history. Along the Berlin Wall, which divided the city into western and eastern parts for many years, there were many quiet, deserted areas that became niches for wild animals. As a result, a walk around the city accompanied by rangers turns into a kind of 'safari'.
Similar to the African Big Five – the main representatives of the savannahs – in Berlin one could also compile a hit parade of animals living in the city. According to the rangers, it would include wild boars, foxes, bats, martens, and all the birds of the city combined, listing which individually would take too much time.
Berlin wild boars are a separate big topic. The city police department from time to time reports incidents involving these wild animals. Herds of wild boars regularly cross roads – sometimes police patrols have to block streets because of them (corresponding videos appear on social networks), sometimes wild boars cause traffic accidents. Last weekend, for example, a herd of wild boars that ran out of the forest knocked down a scooter driver – so badly that he ended up in the hospital.
But there are also aliens – the so-called 'invasive' biological species that ended up in Berlin not as a result of evolutionary processes, but due to human irresponsibility. As an example, the rangers cite a species of freshwater turtles, bought by someone once at a pet store, quickly got bored and thrown into water bodies, where they began to reproduce.
Task number two is education. As soon as an unsuspecting citizen feeds wild swans a bun, Toni Becker addresses him with a polite but very convincing monologue about the harm of external interference in the food chain of waterfowl and about the laws that prohibit feeding animals.
'Most often we are asked what this or that bird is called. That is, people are not very interested in specific nature conservation measures,' says Toni Becker. 'But we tell them that animals need protected habitats. And that animals look for these places especially at the beginning of the year. Sometimes we have to quote laws, but that's a last resort.'
By the way, under German laws, the fine for feeding wild animals can reach up to 1000 euros. But such fines are issued not by rangers, but by employees of law enforcement agencies. As the rangers say, the coronavirus pandemic has spurred Berliners' interest in urban nature – there is more free time and fewer opportunities to travel, so everyone went to forest park areas, which has led not only to more people but also more trash.
Therefore, task number three of the 'urban nature rangers' is to keep order. Their smartphones have a mobile app that allows them to do this quickly and efficiently: just upload a photo of an overflowing trash can with geolocation, and the information will end up at the municipal waste collection and processing company.
And such apps, by the way, are also installed on their smartphones by ordinary Berliners who care about the appearance of their city. Signals to the public order office come from them of various kinds – about illegally placed unwanted furniture simply on the street, about walls or bridges disfigured by graffiti, and sometimes – just about cars parked in the wrong place.