Do treści
BER - Port Lotniczy Berlin Brandenburg

2011-07-31_Bild
31 July 2011

2011-07-31_Head_EN

How, in this kind of weather, is an ant, or anyone else for that matter, supposed to be in the mood for anything? It has rained every day since I got back from sunny Greece and if I had the choice, I would catch the next plane heading south and just get away from it all. Unfortunately, that’s not an option – I’m needed here and no amount of grumbling is going to change that. In any case, all this rain must be good for something.

For the many beautiful plants, trees and grasses at Gutspark Dahlewitz, the park that once belonged to the stately home there, in the Berlin district of Blankenfelde-Mahlow. The park has recently been tidied up and restored to former glory and today once more does justice to its distinguished name. It took a team of gardeners three years to weed the overgrown park, lay down new paths, plant new meadows, build bridges and revive the pond system and the result is definitely worth seeing.

Now, you may be wondering what all this has to do with me and Berlin Airports. Well, the answer is: compensation and substitution. Two pretty hefty words, right? They describe the green activities we undertake to compensate the environment for the impact of the new airport we are building. For every tree felled, for example, we plant new trees. Restoring the park in Dahlewitz is just one of these compensation activities.

You may be interested to know that the largest single compensation and substitution project is the ecological enhancement of the 2600-hectare Zülow lowland area. The Zülow Pfleger people are hard at work there right now. They are a team of 17 young people from all over the world, who have come to the seventh international work camp in Rangsdorf, an area of natural landscape. I feel so sorry for them, having to work there in this abominable weather. No offence to the rain, though – I know it will make everything grow and flourish beautifully.