Zone II, NGO's and why I quit
Between 25 and 30 June, a sign was placed on the "heart" of Zone II, intentionally on a small patch of lacy phacelia that was yet to be harvested. The sign declares this field to be part of "Via Natura 2000", a project dedicated to connection Natura 2000 sites with each other. Not only was the sign set up during the peak of the heat dome that resulted in temperatures climbing up to 40.1°C, meaning whoever put this sign up drove through the area with a car and thus risked a fire due to the heat having dried up the place, they did it without ever talking to the farmer who owns those fields.
Just today I came across "David" whose real name actually is Norbert. He barely talked and was just as frustrated as I was, only saying that this sign "was suddenly there". He read it, too, and probably noticed that the sign claims that his property isn't his own but allegedly belongs to one of the two agricultural businesses in our village. This business already receives roughly a million in subsidies and thus is unlikely to be responsible for this (they also got nothing to do with Norbert at all and their own fields are on the other side of the village, so not even close to Norbert's).
But before I could dig further and figure out who is responsible for this, I looked up the project itself. When I first looked it up on the 30th, the website's certificate had expired in April. Ignoring LibreWolf's warnings I accessed the site and... well, there really is nothing to it, other than "field borders good". There are no scientific publications, only a couple of newsletters that mostly do nothing but repeat "field borders good" and depict those in charge at various events and conferences. Besides the copypasted weather data in some newsletters, only one hints at some monitoring scheme. But instead of butterflies, which were claimed to be monitored by LPV Mittelthüringen, Via Natura 2000 and the semi-governmental fund "Stiftung Naturschutz Thüringen" monitored bees and hoverflies. No data was published, just a summary of the monitoring; this summary alone relies on exaggerated claims such as "a 400% increase in insects" without ever backing it up, as the data that was said to be published in the first quarter of 2026 still has not be published.
And even then it's rather doubtful that they ever did any kind of monitoring in the first place, considering that "David's fields" is not listed anywhere. Neither Via Natura 2000, nor the LPV make any mention of it.
So what is all of this?!
Quite frankly, I don't know what the hell is wrong with those people. Back when I chatted with Odrich Jr. he voiced his distrust towards the Thuringian government and our NGO's – and he's rightfully pissed for our government declaring his "swampy" pond to host fish. It never did, it never will, and he likely will spit on any of those people if they should ever step on his property without his explicit permission.
And that's what they always end up doing when they leave their fancy offices for once. Most of the time they judge places from afar and hire external consultants to do the field work. Most of those consultants rely on books published in the 50's, make up scientific names and advocate for overgrazing even when their own data and prior conclusions advise against it. Their documents read like they were AI-generated, except they were published between 2012 and 2020. The collected data also is largely useless since "Appendix IV species" were intentionally ignored, despite them being impossible to miss. Most places only ever get visited every ten years and during such a monitoring season only four times overall (allegedly), thus making sure to miss most species to later claim "plausible deniability", "staff shortage" or whatever.
This already has resulted in my only "FFH zone" ("Bog Hill") to become a death trap during summer. The large sign, clearly catering to tourists, proudly lists a "fun fact", stating that soil temperatures can be "up to 60°C" – it straight up denies climate change and what this means for this spot that nearly completely dried out during the late-June heat dome. Such soil temperatures are NOT normal for anything but asphalt (and asphalt temperatures reached 100°C during the heat wave – yes, half of this hill is brown now)!
And it just doesn't affect this hill; due to the intensive agriculture surrounding it and my other zones, this kind of bullshit affects even the only wet zone (Zone III) negatively, with the pond and the streak somewhat feeding it rapidly losing water. With hardly any nectar plants in this zone due to the cool and wet spring, insects don't know where to go because crucial parts of Zone II got mowed down and Zone I currently sees some road work, effectively blocking the "corridor" connecting the "Cherry Hill" to Zone II and the Meisel forest. Only few species pass the woody barrier between Zone I and III and the only reason why Zone I got significantly less brown patches – and even the area that was on fire in March is recovering wonderfully! – is due to the lack of "proper management", storing much more water and attracting damselflies and various other bugs. Zone I is less hostile to most organisms than the protected area!
It's only about numbers, PR and funds
Most protected areas only exist "on paper" but those that are being managed only meet some arbitrary criteria that is much more harmful in the long run, especially since most projects either outright deny climate change or attempt to use it as an opportunity to import "exotic" plants to keep the already high amount of economic exploitation just as high as it has been for decades. Most projects are merely meant to look "good" on signs and flyers to attract tourists that "may" invest in our local economy. The truth is, though, that most tourists leave after less than a weekend and don't even stay long enough to go out of their way to search for those species that are claimed to be protected. Those protected places resemble cleaned-up dumpsters and conventional monocultures. The tourists also largely avoid the people living there and show no (genuine) interest at all.
Indeed it has been noticed that so-called "eco-tourists" are horribly unaware of their own influences on habitats [1] and mentally remove themselves from the equation. Some may consider this hypocritical to travel across the world just to visit protected areas but ultimately end up rationalizing and relativizing it.
But there's zero equivalent in German. Those studies may be international but they won't be read by Germans, let alone cited in German sources. Pick any search engine, search "ökotourismus kritik" and you will be bombarded with SEO slop that is ten times worse than the English SEO slop most people online complain about. Dig through forums like iNaturalist and you'll notice a strange absence of German users engaging in fundamental discussions. Search for German sites and encounter nothing but the same PR talk and Twitter/X takes but nothing even remotely of substance and depth. The very few informative posts are completely removed from necessary discussions.
Even LepiWiki's forum is guilty of this, as most hobbyists don't see anything wrong with traveling to as many countries as possible to document butterflies for a German-speaking website with less than 100 active contributors and zero collaboration with any other project or individual. Despite being a public website, it still is a black box in terms of information and an echo chamber regarding its social aspects.
And despite my efforts my hobby research may attract those idiots
Something I've long considered is the possibility of my own silly observations attracting people that don't have the best interest of any of us at heart. My primary motivation for any of this was to figure out what species even live here, considering that the last time I played close attention to my environment I barely saw any plants (mostly cut grass) and bugs. The "wild" fruit trees offered fruits that were extremely sour due to the chronic absence of various pollinators – honey beets and very few bumblebees were hardly enough. Overall my village and its surrounding areas were sad to look at and most spots still are depressing.
The pandemic changed all of this. The sudden absence of anyone but the villagers caused plants to grow I had never seen before and places suddenly hosting much more than tall grasses. The fruits finally started to taste deliciously and there had been a continuous increase in all kinds of bugs, spiders and birds. Mammals also returned after years of declining numbers. Even the drought of 2022 turned out to be an outlier for the most part, though it would have been much less scary if the very people that make a living of producing hot air from Monday to Friday would finally get their heads out of their asses.
Unfortunately they only ever come around when they smell someone doing something they can claim as their own without having done anything only to improve their own numbers, foster "public support" (receive a dedicated article in a local newspaper) and demand more funding to secure their own unsustainable lifestyles. They won't compensate or even credit those that did the "dirty work" and will gladly sell them out to the highest bidder when the opportunity arises.
And this is were I come into play: Even if I obscure the exact locations, use pseudonyms and take great care to not disturb the very spots I was seeking out as a kid when life was overwhelming me (even to the point of checking my shoes and clothes to not spread undesired seeds after every field trip), the moment they see me engaging in my private research they want to have a piece of that cake, too, and exclude me and the farmers involved in the process. I asked for permission, they just walk all over it to impress the lowest common denominator. I try to learn and respect what I'm being confronted with, they only care about publicity and clout. I make no money from any of this and the farmers make little to no profit, they seek as many revenue streams as possible. I go outside as much as I can, they brag about their fancy offices and demand more funds which they'll spend on creating new NGO's, more PR projects and even fancier offices.
My research puts habitats at an even greater risk and I'm tired of encountering "researchers" that behave just like the dumbest tourist you can imagine. I don't want to see the very places that no one gave a shit about until recently flock to them and loudly blast the local news through their phone speakers and set it on fire with disposable grills. Those spots could host much more if they wouldn't have been abused for so long and they still are below of their true potentials but it cannot happen if managers and consultants show up randomly, decide to experiment on them for some time, and then simply vanish without ever hearing from them again, abusing habitats just for some career gains.
I don't want to contribute to this madness.
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[1]
/gemlog/