Dümmer is “Living Lake of the Year 2022

After the Stein­hud­er Meer, the Düm­mer is the sec­ond largest lake in the state of Low­er Sax­ony with a water sur­face of about 1,300 hectares. The valu­able ecosys­tem, which also includes adja­cent wet grass­land areas, extends over around 4,760 hectares. The lake, which was formed around 11,000 years ago dur­ing the last ice age, is on aver­age only 1.10 meters deep and at no point deep­er than 1.40 meters — and per­haps for this very rea­son is nev­er­the­less a hotspot of bio­di­ver­si­ty, espe­cial­ly for rare birds. It is one of Low­er Sax­ony’s five wet­lands of inter­na­tion­al impor­tance pro­tect­ed under the RAMSAR Con­ven­tion and is part of the Euro­pean NATURA 2000 sys­tem of pro­tect­ed areas.

“The Düm­mer exem­pli­fies that nature forms fas­ci­nat­ing net­works. That is why our Liv­ing Lake of the Year award is for the lake, but also for its unique inter­con­nect­ed­ness with oth­er ecosys­tems, such as the exten­sive wet­lands and wet mead­ows in its sur­round­ings. This small-scale con­nec­tiv­i­ty is the rea­son why a par­tic­u­lar­ly large num­ber of bird species — some of them extreme­ly endan­gered — live in the area on and around the Düm­mer, includ­ing gar­ganey, spoon­bill and bluethroat.”

- Bet­ti­na Schmidt, Project Manager

The wet grass­land in turn attracts mead­ow birds such as snipe, black-tailed god­wit, lap­wing, red­shank and the great curlew — even the very rare spot­ted crake is some­times found. The pond rose fields on the lake pro­vide a breed­ing ground for the largest colony of black terns in Low­er Sax­ony. And ospreys and white-tailed eagles cir­cle above the water and prof­it from the rich food sup­ply in the lake.

Committed nature conservation: so that the lake will still be “alive” tomorrow

“We are proud to be able to take care of this species-rich wet­land of Düm­mer, which is so impor­tant for nature con­ser­va­tion,” says Frank Apf­fel­staedt from the Eco­log­i­cal Sta­tion Naturschutzring Düm­mer e.V. “How­ev­er, in doing so, we also take on a great respon­si­bil­i­ty for main­tain­ing the cur­rent state of the ecosys­tem and, if pos­si­ble, even improv­ing it fur­ther. This not only involves a lot of work for many full-time staff and volunteers.

The key to suc­cess is the local net­work of nature con­ser­va­tion author­i­ties from the state, the dis­tricts of Diepholz, Vech­ta and Osnabrück, the Naturschutzring Düm­mer and oth­er nature con­ser­va­tion asso­ci­a­tions, as well as the involve­ment of tourism, water sports and also agri­cul­ture. There are great chal­lenges that we have to mas­ter togeth­er: In sum­mer, many thou­sands of day tourists exert mas­sive pres­sure of use on the Düm­mer. From the catch­ment area of the Hunte as the main trib­u­tary of the Düm­mer comes a too high nutri­ent input into the lake. Since the water lev­el is kept high in sum­mer, con­trary to the nat­ur­al course, the reeds in the shore area lack the oppor­tu­ni­ty to regen­er­ate. And these are just some of the prob­lems for which we have to keep find­ing solu­tions in exchange with local author­i­ties, com­mu­ni­ties and local people.”

Mea­sures tak­en are based on, among oth­er things, exten­sive pop­u­la­tion sur­veys of water­fowl, wad­ing birds and reedbed birds. Reed reeds are among the endan­gered habi­tats in many lake regions in Ger­many. For this rea­son, reedbeds on the lakeshore are specif­i­cal­ly pre­served and pro­mot­ed. Based on the expe­ri­ence of sev­er­al pilot projects, the Naturschutzring Düm­mer e.V. relies here on a tar­get­ed com­bi­na­tion of pal­isade and fence con­struc­tion to reduce ero­sion caused by wave action on the one hand and to cre­ate calmed areas in front of the exist­ing reeds on the oth­er, where the reed plants can grad­u­al­ly spread again. Sand injec­tion can be used to restore the erod­ed lake bottom.

Vol­un­teers main­tain the net­work of small bod­ies of water in the lake’s sur­round­ings, allow­ing water­fowl, wad­ing birds, amphib­ians, fish and rare plants to thrive. The Eco­log­i­cal Sta­tion Naturschutzring Düm­mer e.V. also works to renat­u­ral­ize raised bogs in the wider sur­round­ings of the lake. Anoth­er focus of its activ­i­ties is pub­lic rela­tions and con­tact with vis­i­tors to the Düm­mer area. Themed tours are offered on the lake, through the wet­lands and into the raised bogs in the sur­round­ing area. Accord­ing to the envi­ron­men­tal­ists, it is cru­cial to enable sus­tain­able nature expe­ri­ences: those that are fun and take advan­tage of the high recre­ation­al val­ue of the Düm­mer habi­tat, but also impart the knowl­edge nec­es­sary to pre­serve the cur­rent “Liv­ing Lake of the Year”.

Pass­ing on the impor­tant expe­ri­ences from Düm­mer to oth­er lake regions in Ger­many is made pos­si­ble by the sup­port of the Liv­ing Lakes Net­work Ger­many by the Wilo Foun­da­tion. The foun­da­tion sup­ports projects around the world relat­ing to water as a resource, includ­ing ini­tia­tives of the Glob­al Nature Fund. With the help of the Wilo Foun­da­tion, the net­work was also able to recruit the row­ers of the Ger­man eight, mul­ti­ple world and Euro­pean cham­pi­ons, as ambas­sadors for Liv­ing Lakes Germany.