|
Field trip
Field trip to the Lahn-Dill-Highlands will take place on Friday,
May 20, 2005, 8:30 - 17:00
The Lahn-Dill-Highlands
History and the present conditions both influence landscape
structure and biodiversity. This can be especially well demonstrated
in the Lahn-Dill-Highlands (Hesse), a former mining district
at the eastern edge of the Rheinisches Schiefergebirge.
In this marginal cultural landscape with altitudes ranging
between about 200 - 500 m a.s.l., remnants of traditional
land uses such as coppice woodland and common grazed land
as well as small-scale farming systems have been maintained
despite pronounced landuse changes during the last decades.
The landscape consists of extensive forested areas and
low-productive grasslands, old fields and a small-scale
pattern of crop fields and grassland with a number of linear
structures and microhabitats. Therefore, nearly all species
and communities that can be expected are still occurring
in the Lahn-Dill-Highlands.
Apart from heterogeneity of site conditions, socio-economic
and socio-cultural conditions may also result in a diverse,
dynamic and complex landscape structure. These relationships
will be exemplified by visiting several areas in the Lahn-Dill-Highlands,
where the traditional small-scale land use mosaic still
exists, or extensive low-productive grasslands are predominant.
In the rural district of Eibach we will visit the nature conservation area "Kanzelstein",
a relict of a former common grazed land featuring low-productive
grassland with rocky outcrops, wood pastures, coppices,
and numerous isolated pollarded trees.
Additionally, we will discuss the challenges of conserving
this cultural landscape and its biodiversity in the view
of the still continuing landscape change. In this context,
we will present results of the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 299)
"Land Use Options for Peripheral Regions", that has been
carried out in the Lahn-Dill-Highlands since 1997.
|
