We are certainly glad to have foreign visitors to our site. Welcome!
We are trying to preserve a small but unique piece of land in Northern Germany from a rich and well-connected developer. Please read, look, enjoy, and, if you share our environmental concerns, help us spread the word. Feel free to link the site to sites of other organizations and individuals trying to preserve our Nature for future generations.

This page is not an exact translation of our German pages, but rather a brief overview. We will do our best to get our message across. Then we invite you to visit our other pages (in German), read what you can, and enjoy the photographs. You can click here or on the picture below to go directly there.

Blomenburg is a romantic castle built between 1842 and 1857 by Graf Otto Blome. At that time the land belonged to Denmark. In 1927 Blomenburg became the property of the Schleswig-Holstein province. Its government established a school in the castle and the surrounding grounds. During the WW II an Army Medical Corps unit was stationed there. A school for girls had been located there until 1993. Between 1992 and 1994 the castle provided shelter for Bosnian refugees.

Nowadays Blomenburg lies in the village of Selent, about 100 km/ 60 miles north-east of Hamburg or 25 km/ 15 miles east of Kiel. It consists of the castle, a few smaller buildings, and 67 hectars / 165 acres of forest, meadow, ponds and orchards.

Over the years a rich and intricate ecosystem has developed there, featuring rare animals and plants placed on the Red List of endangered species. Also the landscape around the castle has no match in the entire Northern Germany. While Germany's population density has reached approx. 350 persons on square kilometr, and for Schleswig-Holstein the figure stands at approx. 200 persons on square kilometr, this area has remained relatively untouched by industrial and urban pollution. In Selent it is still easy to forget that the province of Schleswig-Holstein has the lowest percentage (8%) of forest area in the entire Germany (the average for the entire country is approx. 25%).

There are many federal and provincial laws and regulations to protect areas like Blomenburg (i.e. Nature Preservation Law, Forest Preservation Law, Monuments Preservation Law). They look extremely promising on paper, much better than almost any green law in the US. But their efficiency is being tested by the brave capitalistic ways of a real estate developer with a "vision."

The whole are: castle, several houses, park and forest was sold on December 31, 1996 to Hartmann-Group, an insurance and financial company from Rendsburg (a town some 50 km W of Selent).

The new owner of Blomenburg, Mr. Hartmann, plans to destroy this unique natural paradise by erecting some 250 houses there. That would require a set of extraordinary permits from local and provincial authorities. Obtaining them seems an almost impossible task... but nothing is impossible if you have an access to the right people and know how to package an ecological wrongdoing nicely.

Mr. Hartmann sells the idea using the oldest trick in the book: he promotes himself as a man of economic progress, bringing prosperity to the region. And here is the real surprise: what has worked so many times in third-world countries, seems to convince some politicians in one of the richest countries in the world!

The developer promises an office campus in and near around the castle. The old orchard would be cut down, and the castle premises would be adapted for Venture Park, headquarters of computer and other high-tech companies. That's part one. Part two draws on the increasingly popular idea of "living where you work." Hence the project of a residential development.

The German part of the site includes comments to expert opinion on the first part of the project. Institute for Space and Energy (Wedel) said it is unlikely that new companies would be interested in it. Most of them prefer downtown offices in big cities such as Berlin, Hamburg or Frankfurt.

But does Mr. Hartmann himself really care about the office part of the project? We cannot be sure, but we can "follow the money." Two separate limited liability companies could been established for two parts of the project. The one responsible for Venture Park has a capital of about $25,000. The other company will make a several-million-dollars profit. Isn't the vision of new jobs just a smoke screen while the real goal is to sell residential real estate for a fortune?

The development would take a heavy toll on the environment. Birds' breeding sites, habitats of fallow deer, badger, as well as a great number of reptiles, insects and other living creatures would disappear. The newly-erected houses would destroy the feeding grounds of many animals (i. e. a lot of birds thrive in an old fruit orchard).

The environmental destruction of Blomenburg would not be the only consequence. If the owner manages to realize his project, it may set a dangerous precedent justifying similar actions in other places.

This is not democracy when such important decisions are being made behind the closed doors, without any regard for the law. The Blomenburg Citizens' Initiative keeps on fighting against the proposed development informing the media, organizing local community, and keeping the pressure on the local politicians.

You can help in many ways:

1. Share your ideas with us : if you have experience in similar actions and want to share it with us, let's get in touch!

2. Help us improve the site : if you like to comment on the artwork or content of our website, please do not hesitate to e-mail us!

3. Help us communicate : If you think some other pages of the site should be translated into English, and you would like to volunteer for the task, we will thank you by mentioning your name here and, if you want, linking this page to your private or business Web site.

4. Express your support : You can also write letters or send e-mail to local politicians expressing your support for our fight. Here are some addresses;