The territory of today’s drained fen was
intact until the late 19th Century. The
grounds of the “Bürgerwiesen” (“people’s
fields”) have been divided into parcels
of land for the citizens since the Middle
Ages. Between 1906 and 1918 they
founded what was known as the drainage
association under the direction of Franz
Bruckenbacher in order to make better
use of these areas. Farmers dug drainage
ditches by hand, but they kept getting
overgrown. In the late 1980‘s the decision
was made to dig out the ditches by
machine, as many landowners no longer
bothered with digging. This was only done once, however, due to great resistance from environmentalists.
Today we know that such draining brings
with it major ecological and at the end
climatic problems. Drainage with intensive
agriculture reduces biodiversity and the
moor’s ability to store water. Drained
moors can and should be renatured in
order to restore their function as an
important storehouse for carbon dioxide.