Nature Reserves and Industrial Sites : Germany

Compared to other federal states, Brandenburg is sparsely populated. The Havel and Spree rivers meander through its hilly countryside. Nature conservation is practiced in the numerous nature parks, landscape reserves and biosphere reserves in areas such as the Uckermark, the Elbtalaue, the Schorfheide and the Spreewald; in the Lower Oder Valley National Park, nature conservation measures undertaken jointly with the neighboring country of Poland transcend frontiers. In years past, Brandenburg’s poor sandy soil led it to be called the “sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”.

Today the backbone of the state’s economy is increasingly shifting from agriculture with its traditional crops of rye and oilseed to industries such as vehicle construction, mechanical engineering, electronics, environmental technologies, the optical industry, and the energy, food and chemical industries. In the context of the program “Upswing East”, Brandenburg has thus far been able to attract more than 120 major investors who have each made available more than DM 50 million.

Now that visas are no longer required for travel between Germany and Poland, the city of Frankfurt an der Oderis acquiring ever greater importance as the place of transshipment for trade with the countries of Eastern Europe. Since 1991 a German-Polish intergovernmental commission has been working to promote good-neighborly contacts.