When the Berlin Wall fell, it marked the real end at last of World War II and signalled a dramatic winding down of the Cold War. The falling wall was a powerfully positive symbol worldwide. Yet, as a recent issue of the British journal Nature explains, the best of events can have unhappy repercussions. From north to south, a guarded zone lay just within the East German border. Six hundred kilometers long and five kilometers wide, it was forbidding territory, inhabited only by armed and wary patrols prepared to shoot first, ask questions later.
Land forbidden to people becomes a haven for wildlife.
In densely populated Europe, the death strip became a refuge. These lands too provided refuge, at least for creatures not considered fair game. Black storks, cranes, and other species endangered in Europe, from whitefish to wild flowers, also received some benefit from the awkward economic system dominating East Germany. Enormous and poorly managed collective farms often had patches of uncultivated and marshy ground that no one got around to draining and improving for agricultural purposes. The marshes especially suited the big birds, and hundreds of young storks and cranes started life there.