UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Bliesgau - World-class model region
Biosphere reserves are model regions in which the coexistence of man and nature is developed and tested in an exemplary manner. They protect cultural landscapes from destructive interventions and preserve and develop valuable habitats for humans and nature. They ensure a balanced relationship between human use and natural cycles and thus contribute to regional value creation. Biosphere reserves enable exemplary findings for research and science on the interactions of natural and social processes.
A total of 14 model regions in Germany have met the special requirements for recognition as biosphere reserves. Each of them conveys the philosophy of the biosphere in a specific way through distinctive features. With the recognition in 2009, the biosphere reserve Bliesgau represents the Saarland.
Bliesgau Biosphere Reserve
The recognition by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve Bliesgau is based on specific characteristics of this habitat, which other German biosphere reserves can not be presented in this form as an exemplary model region.
The Bliesgau biosphere reserve has a relatively urban character with its proximity to the adjacent conurbation and a population density above the national average. Characteristic for this cultural landscape is the diversity of the landscape with an interlocking of different large and small habitats, which results from thousands of years of human use. Characteristic landscape elements here are the semi-arid grasslands, extensive lean lowland meadows and orchard complexes, beech forests on shell limestone as well as on red sandstone with marshy valleys. In relation to the Saarland, the biosphere reserve has the highest density of habitat types and species of European, national and state importance.
Regional Association of Saarbrücken
The Saarbrücken Regional Association forms an important part of the model region with the complete area of the Kleinblittersdorf municipality. For the Saarbrücken region, the Wintringer farm with the cultural site Wintringer Chapel symbolically forms the gateway to the Bliesgau Biosphere Reserve.
Goals and visions (excerpt)
The central goal is the development of this model region according to the principles of sustainability. Against the backdrop of changing values and demographic change, current agricultural policy perspectives and globalization, the economic, political, social and cultural relationships between urban, suburban and rural areas must be shaped in a sustainable manner. Special attention is paid to the model development of village centers, village infrastructure, landscape development, nature and species conservation, land development relationships and local social networks. The Bliesgau region has great potential for renewable energy. The use of biomass from agriculture and forestry for energy production also offers new perspectives in the development of the cultural landscape.
The Bliesgau Biosphere Reserve thus stands for the authentic preservation and sustainable further development of an evolved cultural landscape at the interface of Europe, which possesses a multitude of distinctive characteristics.
UNESCO has thus given this region the unique opportunity to establish its own "laboratory" with these resources, with the call to develop solutions at all levels in experiments and processes in order to preserve this habitat, also in the context of global threats to the environment, across generations and in the long term! In this context, the cultural factor can assume a synergetic cross-sectional task.
Cultural development/Reflections in the Bliesgau Biosphere Reserve through artistic creation
"Art is always individual positing, whereas culture is collective tension. But no art emerges without a supportive culture, and no culture survives without arts that challenge it."
The cultural site Wintringer Chapel understands itself in this sense as a contribution to the preservation and strengthening of the cultural diversity in the biosphere reserve Bliesgau, and understands artistic position/reflection as an equally important control instrument of regional development.
Quality contemporary art directly and indirectly reflect the themes of the Bliesgau Biosphere Reserve at the cultural site Wintringer Chapel. The artistic reflections focus on sustainability as a quality principle.
In sum, the model project cultural site Wintringer Chapel stands for an understanding of culture and a pointed promotion of the arts, which respects the unique resource of a UNESCO protected model region - the biosphere reserve Bliesgau - as a strength.