ALFAwetlands partners are continuing conducting Living Labs Open Days and we are grateful to Marie Lorenz from Michael Succow Foundation for sharing their story with us.
Open Day
On 11th of July on the Living Lab Open Day at the Moorbauer in Malchin, Germany was all about peatlands. Where is it easier to understand the peatland if not in the middle of one?
The ‘Upper Peene Valley’ in Germany is one of nine European peatland regions that are being researched as so-called “Living Labs” in the ALFAwetlands project.
As part of the project, the Succow Foundation is supporting local stakeholders from agriculture, nature conservation, municipalities, forestry, administration, education, tourism, politics and science in the transformation towards wet peatland utilization. To bring together a wide variety of knowledge and interests, not only workshops and landscape walks are organized, but also Open Days such as this one.
A diverse programme awaited interested visitors from 2 pm. Starting with a guided tour into the peatland and a peat coring demonstration. As the name implies, the restaurant “Moorbauer” (engl. Peatland Farmer) is located directly in the peatland and there are several metres of peat directly under your feet. This can be noticed not only by the vibrations of the ground when you move around there.
Peatland suitcase and book presentation and songs
The programme continued with the presentation of the “Moorkoffer” (engl. Peatland suitcase) – a collection of educational material about peatland and climate education for different age groups.
In the afternoon, Swantje Furtak and Hans Joosten presented their newly published book “Moore sind wie Menschen, nur nasser” (Engl. “Peatlands are like people, only wetter – available by now only in German). In a summery atmosphere next to the river Peene, visitors were able to listen to various peatland stories and anecdotes.
The evening concluded with a peatland-themed song evening by and with Uta Berghöfer, Lars Grünwoldt and Tobias Rank. The trio took the audience on a literary and musical journey into the peatland.
Paludiculture and culinary delights
Throughout the day, visitors were able to enjoy the culinary delights of the Moorbauer and find out about paludiculture in an exhibition and discover exhibits made from peatland biomass. Various peatland books and magazines were displayed on a book table.
Living Labs exhibition
Large-format landscape photographs from the nine European Living Labs of the ALFAwetlands project were also exhibited throughout the day.
A gallery in the open air. These pictures are intended to move from project country to project country as a travelling exhibition and were last seen in Austria at Lake Neusiedl.
More diverse Living Labs Open Days will be organised in the course of the project. Stay tuned for more news!