Spreewald Biosphere Reserve, Biosphere reserve in Brandenburg, Germany
The Spreewald Biosphere Reserve covers 475 square kilometres about 100 km south of Berlin, a lowland of wet meadows, small fields and near-natural lowland forests threaded by a 1575 km network of natural and artificial Spree waterways. Its moor soils formed after the last ice age, when rising temperatures and the slight gradient created an inland delta and fallen leaves turned to peat.
The reserve was designated on 1 October 1990 under the GDR's national park programme, and it later came under UNESCO patronage as part of the Man and the Biosphere programme. Its 475 square kilometres protect a lowland landscape of wet meadows, small fields and near-natural lowland forests. The 1995 Seville Strategy, the framework document of the Man and Biosphere programme, guides its management.
The reserve protects traditional land-use forms such as Horstäcker (raised-field plots) and Streuwiesen (litter meadows), whose small-scale patchwork still shapes the villages along the Fließe. Boat tours on the waterways have a tradition of over 100 years and serve as a tool for environmental education. The scattered farmsteads and villages on the channels are part of the protected cultural landscape.
The reserve lies about 100 km south of Berlin and is crossed by a 1,575 km network of natural and artificial Spree waterways. Tourism here has a tradition of over 100 years and is steered mainly along the water, so boat trips are the classic way to move through the reserve. Marked cycling paths and information centres in Lübbenau, Burg and Schlepzig help with orientation.
The reserve's water network is 1,575 km long, made up of natural and artificial channels of the Spree. The Spreewald was designated on 1 October 1990 under the GDR's national park programme, before German reunification. Its moor soils formed over roughly 10,000 years as fallen leaves turned to peat under waterlogged, airless conditions.
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