The Green Line of Europe
By Submitted Article on September 11, 2020.
Walter Kerber
Lethbridge Philatelic Society
For decades the Iron Curtain stretched from the Arctic Coast to the Black Sea across Eastern Europe. Too, there was a curtain stretched across Germany from the Black Sea to the southern boundary with Austria, to the Mediterranean. For the duration of the Cold War, these areas were mined and guarded to prevent people from moving across, mainly east to west as in the DDR. When the Berlin Wall fell and the division of Germany stopped, this curtain region became a vacant wasteland.
Over the decades it has been used by plant life and wildlife without much human intervention. As a result the areas have become a kind of northern jungle. This green line or band stretches across 24 countries and a distance of 12,500 kilometres. In 2002 the man who made the curtain fall, Mikhail Gorbachev, took the umbrella over this line across Europe.
The 1,393-kilometre green band in Germany has become a national monument and is a nature preserve. The government is adding area to the line to protect the more than 1,200 endangered species of plants and animals only found there.
A commemorative stamp was issued this year by Deutsche Post for this special area.
Walter Kerber is a longtime member of the Lethbridge Philatelic Society.
9-8
And then we have the AB Kenney UCP wanting to kaibosh how many parks?