The wild iron curtain
The former no-go zone between east and west has become, in parts, an accidental wildlife haven
BBC SOUND
Listen to Walking the Iron Curtain, a three-part series presented by Mary-Ann Ochota
THE SUN-SOAKED SHORES OF LAKE PRESPA are buzzing. Not with holidaymakers topping up their tan, but with the symphonic drone of hundreds of thousands of insects. It’s a sensory indicator of a thriving habitat with exceptional biodiversity. The lizards scuttle, the birdsong rises and falls in rich, vivid waves, the fish glimmer in the depths of the lake.
Lake Prespa and Ohrid are on the Balkan Peninsula, where the national borders of Albania, North Macedonia and Greece meet – literally in the middle of the lakes. The lakes and their surrounding mountains and sub-tropical forests are so unique that they’ve been granted UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status. Collectively, they are home to hundreds of endemic species, from the Ohrid trout to rare types of juniper, to the Dalmatian pelican. If you know where to go, you might spot European lynx, grey wolves and brown bears. Tread very softly and the Balkan mole might even show its face.
Dalmatian pelicans benefit from unique habitats in the southernmost European Greenbelt 
A black-veined white butterfly thrives near Lake Ohrid 
Lake Prespa hasn’t suffered from too much tourism
IN OTHER PLACES, THIS WOULD BE A tourist hotspot; stretches of the lake shore would host floating restaurants, upmarket hotels and paddleboard hire kiosks. But beyond Ohrid city, the villages are small and agriculture is low-intensity. Large tracts of mountainside haven’t ever been cultivated or altered. The reason these ecosystems are intact, to a large extent, is the accidental result of the tumultuous, traumatic history of the 20th century.
Four decades of geopolitical tension and physical repression following the end of World War II saw the continent of Europe divided into a Western Bloc (free-market, democratic nations, allied to the USA) and the Eastern Bloc (primarily communist and authoritarian nations, allied with the Soviet Union and China). The so-called ‘Iron Curtain’ was ideological, but also physical, with thousands of kilometres of fences, land mines, armed patrols and razor wire. It was a death zone for humans, but because people didn’t go there, in parts it became an accidental haven for rare flora and fauna.
After the Iron Curtain fell, naturalists across the continent saw the potential – maybe this vast greenbelt of linked habitats could be protected for wildlife in peacetime too. And who knows, perhaps it could even play a part in healing the continent’s divisions and usher in a new era of connection and collaboration. They devised a hugely ambitious plan: they would create the world’s longest wildlife reserve following the line of the 12,500km border that had divided the continent for decades.
The European Greenbelt spans 24 European countries, 40 national parks and more than 3,000 protected nature areas.
It’s one of the biggest environmental and cultural projects in the world, with hundreds of local and transnational organisations collaborating to conserve and protect the network of habitats, from the far northern reaches of boreal forest bordering Finland and Russia, to the coast of the Black Sea. I’m lucky enough to be travelling its length to learn more about the wildlife and the history of this living memorial.
“Prespa is one of the most intact natural areas in Europe. And people here, around the lakes, feel like they are one,” explains Gabriel Schwaderer, one of the founders of the European Greenbelt project and director of conservation organisation Euronatur. “There is complex history, decades of mutual suspicion, and a degree of separation and conflict on a political level, but the people on the ground know they share one environment and have to manage and protect it jointly.” Environmental organisations from Greece, North Macedonia and Albania work together, and the three governments have established the first Transboundary Park in the Balkans. It’s an enviable model of international co-operation.
IN THE FORESTS OF SNEŽNIK IN Slovenia, nations once torn apart by the Iron Curtain are working together to help the Eurasian lynx, the biggest wild cat species in Europe. They’re powerfully muscled with long tufts on their ears, distinctive bobbed tails and dramatic black-and-white rimmed eyes. There’s a healthy population in Romania, but populations in forests further west are isolated and suffer from a lack of genetic diversity. The LIFE Lynx programme has successfully relocated 10 wild lynx into the forests of Slovenia and Croatia. The aim is to boost genetic diversity, and link up isolated populations through the Dinaric Mountains and southern Alps.
The most recent arrival from Romania is Blisk. A large male in his prime, he’s on alert as two local deer hunters who’ve been bringing food and fresh water to his temporary acclimatisation enclosure today approach with a screwdriver. Carefully they remove the screws and drop a fence panel to the forest floor. The lynx steps out, looks around, then bursts into life. Within seconds, he’s camouflaged among the dappled forest foliage. “He’s gone! Free and wild! Good luck Blisk!” breathes a local journalist, invited to witness the release. From this spot, we’re told, you could walk hundreds of kilometres under tree cover. It gives Blisk the chance to establish territory and find females. LIFE Lynx researchers will follow his progress, capturing him on camera traps and hopefully, in due course, identifying his DNA in the next generation of wild lynx kittens.
Wild boar were once restricted by Germany’s division 
Patrolling the border between Czechoslovakia and West Germany
ANIMALS LIVING ON THE ACTUAL hard border of the Iron Curtain responded in unique ways to their unique circumstances. In central Berlin, a population of rabbits thrived in the no man’s land that cut through the city. When the Berlin Wall fell, the rabbits died. Elsewhere, at the fall of the Iron Curtain, animals had new opportunities. “Shortly after the border was opened, parts of west Germany that had no wild boar were swamped!” Georg Baumert from the Borderland Museum in Eichsfeld, Germany, tells me. “But prey species were much slower. On the German-Czech border, even today, more than 30 years later, red deer won’t cross the old lines of the border. They learn everything from their mother, who learned everything from her mother,” Georg tells me. “So the majority still turn around where the Iron Curtain was. Ten years ago it was 75 percent, now it’s 60 percent. It’s slowly changing because in each generation there will be a few deer who don’t listen to their mothers!”
“In Slovenia, nations once torn apart by the Iron Curtain are working together to help the Eurasian lynx”
There are new human pressures along the European Greenbelt. In the Baltic countries, insensitive tourism development risks rare coastal habitats. And in the Balkan Peninsula, more than 3,000 hydroelectric projects are planned.
The borderlands that divided anticommunist Greece from communist Yugoslavia and a violently isolationist, communist Albania were heavily fortified and forcibly depopulated. Other areas were systematically neglected into poverty and inevitable depopulation. The promise of large infrastructure projects and local jobs are appealing to some – aroad to a modern and prosperous future. For others, the potentially catastrophic environmental and cultural cost can’t be justified.
ONE OF THE LAST WILD, unaltered sections of the Drin River in Albania flows through farmland that’s been cultivated the same way for centuries. It’s now under threat from the Skavica Dam project, which could see the Dibër valley turned into a reservoir. Ferzileta Gjika was born in Fushe-Alie village in the valley and fears the dam’s impact.
“My father used to breed horses,” she tells me. ‘“I grew up listening to the sounds of the river and each day we would swim the horses over the river to the meadows on the other side. When they built the first dam further upstream, things changed. Every day they would release a large amount of water and we would have to get the horses back before the discharge, otherwise they would be drowned. If they build this new dam, they will destroy the river completely and the whole village will be drowned.’
Despite the fact that more than 20,000 people would be displaced from 30 different villages, important wildlife habitats along the river would be inundated and migration corridors for species like lynx would be cut off, the Albanian government are pressing ahead with assessment plans for the Skavica Dam project.
“The government is selling the idea that hydropower is green,” Ferzileta explains. “But not all projects are appropriate. And they’re not considering other possibilities, such as solar or wind, that could generate clean energy and have a less harmful impact on the environment.”
Forcing local communities to choose between protecting nature and prioritising economic development is wrongheaded, Gabriel Schwaderer insists. “It’s not either/ or. Poverty is not a condition that helps protect wildlife. We need to help people improve their lives, build something better with nature and help them see it has value. This,” he sweeps his hand to encompass Albania’s blue-hued mountains and crystal waters, “is an asset for high-value ecotourism and sustainable agriculture. Yes, there’s a need for clean energy and improved infrastructure. But it can be achieved without trashing what they have.”
IN FINLAND, THE ENVIRONMENTAL challenge is in reverse – rather than protecting pristine habitats from new threats, the race is on to restore habitats that suffered under Cold War conditions. At Linnunsuo wetland, some five hours’ drive northwest of Helsinki, the reedbeds gently rustle and a throng of waterbirds loop low. More than 180 native and migratory species of bird have been recorded here. The presence of Finland’s only native poisonous snake, the common viper, is also an indicator that the ecosystem is in good health, with plenty of prey.
You can’t tell by looking, but Linnunsuo used to be a state-owned industrial peat mining site. Tero Mustonen, founder of the Snowchange Cooperative, shows me photographs from a few years ago. The dark black peat is dry and exposed, carved by heavy machinery. Vast rectangular pits are fringed by sterile blocks of pines in rulerstraight lines.
“Linnunsuo wetland is now a jewel in the crown for the campaigners pushing to rewild Finland”
“Devastated,” he says. “This place represents what happened across Finland – industrial extraction of peat for burning in peat-fired power plants, and monocrop forestry planted on the drained land for timber and wood pulp. For 50 years since the end of World War II, Finland has exploited its natural resources until the land is devastated. We burn peat – it’s a fuel dirtier than coal. The forest is planted on land that is bleeding carbon. Yes, we have trees, but there is nothing natural about it.” I admit I had always thought of Finland as a country rich in nature. Tero is rueful. “We have an excellent PR division in the Nordic countries, but below the Arctic Circle, only three per cent of Finland’s natural forest remains and most of the rivers and lakes have been altered and polluted.”
TERO LIVES IN THE NEARBY village of Selkie, on the banks of the Jukajoki River. He’s a conservationist, research scientist and a member of the IPCC (the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). He’s also a fisherman. One night in 2010, he got a call from a neighbour, a fellow fisherman. There had been a leak of highly acidic water from one of the peat extraction pits, the equivalent of thousands of litres of bleach flowing directly into the river, killing everything, including tens of thousands of fish. It happened again the following year. The severity of the fish death events marked a turning point – the village successfully sued the peat company for damages. The mining licences were revoked and extraction at Linnunsuo stopped. The mining company were also forced to pay for the first stage of the site’s regeneration: letting the drained peat re-flood, rewilding the stripped earth, giving nature space to restore. Linnunsuo is now a jewel in the crown for the campaigners pushing to rewild Finland – and other parts of Europe and beyond. “The great beauty of the boreal forest is that it can recover,” Tero smiles. “It’s tough and tenacious. But to give it a chance to do so, we need to change how we manage it.”
Finland shares a 1,200km border with Russia, marked by posts rather than a fence. On the Russian side, pristine old-growth forest still exists. The hope is that as forestry practices change in Finland and nature is restored, large animals such as bears, elk and reindeer might travel across the border.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, collaboration between Russian and Finnish conservationists has stopped. But, Tero insists, all is not lost. “Our places want to heal. In a world of runaway climate change and war, the success of somewhere like Linnunsuo is a real-world reminder that we have a fighting chance.”
Where is the former Iron Curtain?
The physical divide of the Cold War era split the USSR and allied countries, including Poland, East Germany and Hungary, from the Western Bloc.
OTHER IRON CURTAIN HABITATS
Stories from the borders
Harz National Park, Germany
In 2018, commercial spruce plantations across Germany were at the limits of their resilience due to high summer temperatures and drought. Bark beetles attacked, and millions of trees died en masse. In Harz National Park, it was decided to leave the ghostly silver trees standing and allow natural regeneration. More than 1,500 species of forest beetle require dead wood, and they are considered the engine of forest regeneration.
Curonian Spit, Lithuania & Russia
A unique chain of sand dunes, 98km long, separates a freshwater lagoon from the Baltic Sea. The northern end is part of Lithuania; the southern end is part of Kaliningrad, in the Russian Federation. The grey dunes, dominated by lichens, mosses and low-lying perennial grasses, provide important nesting sites for white-tailed eagles and tawny pipits. Since the start of the Ukraine war, no cross-border collaboration has been possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary-Ann Ochota is an anthropologist and broadcaster, and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. She has presented numerous radio and television programmes for the BBC. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @MaryAnnOchota or visit maryannochota.com.