Deepening knowledge while going for a walk

A new educational coastal trail, officially inaugurated today in Wendtorf on Schleswig-Holstein's Baltic Sea coast, now offers insights into life on the coast and the Baltic Sea habitat. 

Along the educational coastal trail in Stein and Wendtdorf, visitors can deepen their knowledge at a total of seven locations. They can explore topics such as seagrass meadows as a nursery for numerous sea creatures, the everyday life of a fisherman, and the nature reserves and their importance. The trail was designed and implemented as part of the SpaCeParti project, a joint project led by Kiel University as part of the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM). It was created together with local researchers and communities, nature conservation organisations, and people who live on the coast and with the Baltic Sea.

Educational coastal trail aims to increase awareness of the various challenges of the Baltic Sea as a natural environment

“For more than two years, we worked with various local groups and discussed new ways of communicating knowledge. One of the results is the new educational coastal trail. The aim of the trail is to bring people into contact with the natural environment of the Baltic Sea and increase their awareness of the challenges faced by both the ecosystem and coastal fishing”, says Professor Marie-Catherine Riekhof, Director of the Center for Ocean and Society (CeOS) of Kiel Universities priority research area Kiel Marine Science (KMS) and project manager of SpaCeParti – Coastal Fishery, Biodiversity, Spatial Use and Climate Change: A Participative Approach to navigate the Western Baltic Sea into a Sustainable Future.

From the Tatort-Hawaii surf and kite school in the west, to the Wendtorf lock in the east, a series of engaging information boards are located along the dyke, each with a different theme: beach life, nature conservation, fishing life, local stories of people and sea, the Bottsand nature reserve, and explanations of coastal dynamics using Barsbek Lake as an example.

Multimedia knowledge for society

The information offered along the trail is multimedia-based: in addition to images and brief explanations, coastal visitors can access additional content via QR codes, such as a virtual tour on a fishing boat or a multidimensional insight into the seasonal changes in the surrounding beach sections. Several podcast episodes, which can be accessed at the stations, provide information about the importance of seagrass for the ecosystem. 

“The route showcases the diversity of life around, in and with the water. The educational trail is not only designed for tourists, but also for the local population” says Lydia Redlin from the Stein Wendtorf Tourist Service, speaking on behalf of all the local stakeholders involved.

Stein-Wendtorf Living Lab contributes to sustainable transformation

In addition to scientists, the conception development of the content involved two fishermen, the Probstei Harbour Museum, the nature conservation association NABU (Kiel branch), the Stein Wendtorf tourist service, the Tatort-Hawaii water sports centre and the municipalities of Stein and Wendtorf. In the SpaCeParti project, stakeholders worked together with researchers on concepts that could contribute to a sustainable future for regional fisheries, among other things. The collaboration between the various local stakeholders in a real-world laboratory played a key role in this process, allowing different perspectives of the interest groups to unite. This concept of a real-world laboratory enabled the stakeholders to share information and jointly design the information boards. The extent to which the development of the educational coastal trail promotes mutual understanding and creates a basis for sustainable transformation is now being investigated.

About the SpaCeParti project

The project “SpaCeParti, Space, Climate Change, Participation - Coastal Fishery, Biodiversity, Spatial Use and Climate Change: A Participative Approach to navigate the Western Baltic Sea into a Sustainable Future” is one of five joint projects of the DAM Research Mission sustainMare “Protection and Sustainable Use of Marine Areas” and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Kiel University is coordinating the project. Joint partners are the Institute of Marine Ecosystem and Fishery Sciences (IMF) with the Centre for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) in the Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climate Change, and Society” at the University of Hamburg (UHH), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research at the University of Leipzig (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR), the Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries in Rostock (TI), and the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER).

Further information:

About the SpaCeParti project of the DAM research mission sustainMare https://www.spaceparti.de/

About the Center for Ocean and Society of the Kiel Marine Science (KMS) priority research area https://oceanandsociety.org/de/startseite; kiel-marine-science.de