Schwarztonnensand

I first got to know the island of Schwarztonnensand four years ago. During a visit to the district of Stade, I met the island's nature conservation officer by chance and got talking to him about his work to protect the island. The island and the stories about it attracted me from the very beginning. During my research, many stories from the past and present, photos and newspaper reports came to light. I thought: what a treasure trove of contradictions and absurdities this island is! Starting with the fact that this untouched biotope on Schwarztonnensand was only created because nobody knew what to do with all the sand when the Elbe was first deepened in 1968, its existence is now threatened by the latest deepening of the Elbe, as the great current that now prevails in the Elbe is gradually eroding the island and will soon turn it back into a disdainful mud bank. But until this happens, a wide variety of animals come together in a very small space - as in only a few other places: Seals from the North Sea lie in the sun, sea eagles and buzzards hunt for shrews, migratory birds from Siberia and Alaska make a stopover here before flying further south, deer and rodents, water and forest birds and many more come together in a way that only untouched nature allows. The resilience that life shows again and again is revealed to me in the tremendous contrast between this diverse and fragile biotope and the huge passing overseas container ships that pass the island non-stop and which, with their rattling diesel engines and darkly smoking chimneys, seem like supernatural industrial giants of an archaic era.

The project is currently in the financing phase. If you would like to know more, please contact me.