The Biologist

In the quarry operations around Lindlar, Marienheide and Gummersbach, the pressure of industrialisation increased significantly in the 1950s and 1960s. Many small, often family-run businesses could not afford the necessary investments in wheel loaders, lorries and specialised saws. As a result, they ceased their operations. Some of the abandoned areas were filled with soil, while others were left to nature’s own devices, and often turned into illegal dumping grounds for car tyres, construction debris and other contaminants.

In the 1980s, the massive forest die-off and the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl also deeply concerned many people in the Bergisches Land. The emerging nature conservation movement rediscovered the old quarries: the first nature reserves were established. The steep quarry walls, sunlit spoil heaps and shallow ponds became important habitats for endangered animal and plant species that could not otherwise survive in our modern cultural landscape. To preserve this endangered diversity, these areas – if accessible at all – can only be explored along designated paths.

However, the necessary maintenance measures are highly demanding: to prevent overgrowth on the spoil heaps, all the stones must be regularly rearranged. Heavy machinery is used in the quarrying basin: during “flattening”, the entire plant cover is removed. And only brush cutters can help against the growth on the quarry walls. Without these measures, rapid overgrowth would occur, reducing the newly established biodiversity.

Further background information can be found in the publication “Steinreich im Bergischen – Steinbrüche im Bergischen Land entdecken” (Stone-Rich in the Bergisch Region – Discovering Quarries in the Bergisches Land). This documentation, developed by the Biologischen Station Oberberg and the Biologischen Station Rheinberg in collaboration with other partners as part of the project “Naturschutz trifft Kulturlandschaft – STEINland”, is available for free download at www.biostationoberberg.de.