Urban biodiversity in Berlin
With >50% of the world’s population living in cities, urban environments are critical against climate change. Learn how Berlin is getting it right.
Note: As we’re currently crossing the Mediterranean Sea & Atlantic Oceans by sailboat (!) our content is going to look a little different, as we catch up on the backlog of European climate stories and hotspots before starting the South & Central America chapter of our journey in 2024.
We’ve visited 25 countries to date and traveled 25,000KM+ using only low-carbon forms of transportation — run it back with us to the first official stop of our world tour 🇩🇪
After two days of hitchhiking and a 12-hour Deutsche Bahn marathon, we arrived well-fed on train snacks in Berlin, the first official stop of The Green Journey. Although Polo is a big techno fan, we knew our hiker-chic gear wouldn’t get us entrance into the infamous Berghain nightclub - so we opted to spend our weekend park-hopping instead of club-hopping. For 72 hours, we made it our mission to visit as many of Berlin’s green spaces as we could. And the results did not disappoint! Here’s a few things we learned.
A hub for green living
Berlin is often touted as one of the most eco-friendly cities in Europe. But it’s not actually the thrift-shopping hipsters in Kreuzberg or the insane veggie bahn mi we ate that make Berlin green. With over 2,500+ public parks and gardens and 1,200 square feet of tree cover per resident (this is 300 times greater than tree cover per person in New York City, where the figure clocks in at a meager 4 square feet), Berlin has sprung up as a successful case study for what a healthy urban ecosystem can look like.
What’s special about Berlin is that it proves you don’t need wilderness to be wild – it’s estimated the city hosts over 20,000 different plant and animal species – including boars, foxes, rabbits, and even 300 different species of bees!
Of course, part of Berlin’s success as a hub for urban biodiversity comes from its history as the center of the division between East and West during the Cold War. While the areas surrounding the Berlin wall became a ‘death strip’ for humans, animals and plants came right up to the Wall, undisturbed. And when the Berlin Wall fell in 1990, it opened up an urban greenway where the Iron Curtain once stood.
All across the city, you can see abandoned railways, waterways, and vacant remnants of concrete jungle that have been allowed to return to a more natural state. This has not, however, been entirely by accident - a range of stakeholders, ranging from local politicians to global NGOs like The Nature Conservancy - have been working tirelessly to promote the scaling of green spaces across Berlin that coexist in harmony with native plants and animals.
Flying towards a fossil-fuel free future
One of our favorite climate-positive thought experiments at The Green Journey is imagining what can be done with the old infrastructure of the fossil fuel era as we transition towards a cleaner, greener economy. As the world cuts down on carbon emissions, an infrastructure revolution will be required to reimagine and reorganize the world.
In Berlin, we saw a dream come to life at Tempelhofer Feld (Tempelhof), which was once one of the largest commercial airports in the world. Today, Tempelhof has a new lease on life as a public park – it’s even bigger than Central Park in New York City!
The massive park has 900+ acres of open space where Berliners and visitors alike can roller blade, windsurf, bike, picnic and more. A good chunk of the space is also reserved as a safe haven for endangered birds.
However, it’s worth noting that this park has not come to be without a fight. Over the years, there have been many attempts to develop and privatize the space. But each time, citizens have pushed back and kept Tempelhof as a center for outdoor recreation open to all!
Food for thought (literally)
We ended our park-visiting extravaganza at the Blankenfelde Botanical Park, a beautiful 84-acre park containing over 6,000 species of plants within the borders of its urban forest and greenhouse. But instead of checking out the endangered species making their home in the park, we made a beeline for the most conventional crops grown within the park’s borders at the 2000m² project.
The project poses an important question for a climate just future - how can we feed a growing population in a world where arable land is shrinking?
If you were to divide the planet’s total surface area of arable land (about 1.5 billion hectares) by the number of people sharing the planet (7.5 billion) you would get a fair share allocation of 2000 square meters per person. For contrast, it’s estimated that the Standard American Diet (SAD) uses about 13,000 square meters of arable land per person. Said another way, if each person on the planet was to eat like the typical American, we’d need at least 5 more planet Earths!
So yeah, it’s probably time to give up the SAD way of eating.
But there’s good news - as 2000m2 project shows, it’s totally possible for each person to eat a diverse and delicious diet with their fair share of land. Walking through the field, we passed plots growing the ingredients for pizza, pasta, and of course - German pretzels. And much to Megan’s joyful surprise, a 2000m² diet even supports growing coffee and chocolate!
The garden at Blankenfeld is just one of 200 community gardens and 73,000 allotment gardens throughout the city of Berlin. And recent research shows that if urban gardening in Berlin is maximized, 82 percent of the city’s vegetable demand could be met locally!
We love public green space - but we love it even more when it becomes a productivity hub for feeding the future!
Room for improvement
While we loved our time in Berlin, and will definitely go back (next time perhaps with vegan leather clothes to go clubbing) it’s worth noting that the city still has room to improve on its path to being a fully green city. Berlin still is home to lots of cars in the city center despite a robust public transport system. Unfortunately, this year the city was also home to a major loss on GHG reduction , as voters failed to pass a referendum that would have accelerated the city’s net-zero target to 2030.
But overall, we had a great time enjoying urban biodiversity in Berlin and we’re excited to keep tabs on the Green Capital of Germany as it continues to evolve!
Three climate actions you can take:
Berlin may be big and urban, but it proves to us that nature and city can coexist peacefully side by side. If you’re living in a city, here are three climate actions you can take to promote a more biodiverse environment at home!
Plant native species: Restoring native plant habitats is critical to promoting urban biodiversity, supporting the healthy lives of local bird species and essential pollinators. Whether you have a home garden, a window box, or are part of a community planting effort, focus on the cultivation of native species to create healthy ecosystems! You can use this helpful database to find native plants in your area.
Join a community garden: Community gardens have a wide range of incredible benefits, from making fresh produce available, to beautifying the landscape, to even relieving stress when you’re gardening! Consider starting an initiative in your area or joining an existing garden.
Spread the word: If you liked this story, or learned something from it, we encourage you to share it with your network.