Partnership keeps nature at Panzer Training Area thriving

Photo By Bardia Khajenoori | A team of volunteers heads off into the Panzer Local Training Area on Landscape Protection Day 2021. Photo by Bardia Khajenoori.  

BOEBLINGEN, BW, GERMANY

11.01.2021

Story by Bardia Khajenoori 

U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart

U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart hosted the twelfth ‘Landscape Protection Day’ on Oct. 23, with volunteers gathering at the Panzer Local Training Area (LTA) on a brisk Saturday morning to maintain one of Baden-Württemberg’s most biodiverse natural habitats. The event has been held every two years since 1997 and is a joint effort between the garrison’s Environmental Division, Federal Forestry Office, and local nature and conservation groups.

“This is an area that’s incredibly important to the whole region for the protection of native species,” said biologist Rolf Gastel, chairman of the Leinfelden-Echterdingen branch of the German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, known as NABU.

Gastel literally wrote the book on the subject when he and other professionals authored a 1994 text demonstrating the exceptional conservation value of the LTA, which was unprotected at the time. Its future use was also in question then due to uncertainty about whether U.S. forces would remain. Their recommendations for action later came to fruition with further research studies and the establishment of official management plans, in which efforts like Landscape Protection Day play a role.

“It’s a very valuable partnership for both sides [the Army and the nature organizations],” Gastel said.

Col. Matt Ziglar, garrison commander, greeted and thanked the assembled group before the day’s work began. He presented certificates to Gastel and Karl Stäbler, a representative of the Schwäbischer Albverein and longtime organizer and participant of Landscape Protection Day, in recognition of their work and dedication over the years.

Volunteers divided themselves into teams to focus on different areas and tasks, and a number of attendees were professional biologists or ecologists who could articulate the “why” behind specific actions.

For example, grasses and tree saplings starting to settle over an area of sand needed to be removed to allow various species of wild bees and beetles to reproduce there, explained Inga Gebhard, a geo-ecologist with the garrison’s Directorate of Public Works.

Military training areas like Panzer’s offer an unfertilized and comparatively undisturbed environment which is rare in urbanized Europe, where land is at a premium and most available space is inevitably used actively in some way.

Tank maneuvering exercises prior to the 1990s actually created open soil and habitats prime for settlement by unique plants, animals, and amphibians. But now that tanks haven’t maneuvered in the LTA for three decades, the habitats now have to be kept suitable by hand — something that Thomas Peissner, a NABU member for fifty years, is happy to help accomplish.

“If we don’t do that, a lot of endangered species will no longer have a place to live,” Peissner said, emphasizing the importance of the biennial maintenance effort. “For me, it’s a great thing that this cooperation functions so well.”

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This story originally appeared on page 12 of the November 2021 issue of the “Stuttgart Citizen.” It may also be found at https://issuu.com/advantinews/docs/sc_november_2021/12. It differs from the original version in that the word ‘October’ in the first paragraph has since been abbreviated in line with Associated Press style.

• Date Taken: 11.01.2021
• Date Posted: 12.30.2021 11:16
• Story ID: 412159
• Location: BOEBLINGEN, BW, DE