Ecotourism in Uckermark
The theme of this year’s World Tourism Day, “Tourism and Water: Protecting Our Common Future”, is appropriate for the Uckermark tourist region in eastern Germany.
More remote, more beautiful, more relaxing? Superlatives no longer guarantee a successful vacation. On the contrary, many Germans are discovering ecological tourism in their own country. Sustainable and environmentally friendly travel has become a growth segment in the German tourist industry.
Uckermark presents a good example of well implemented ecotourism. The region in the northeastern part of Brandenburg won the Federal Competition for Sustainable Tourist Regions 2012/2013. Organized by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the German Tourism Association (DTV), the competition aims to foster sustainable tourism in Germany. A panel of judges examined tourism offerings with regard to economy, ecology and social compatibility. The range of experiences on offer in Uckermark is large, including donkey excursions, tours in covered wagons and handcar journeys on disused railway tracks.
The region currently offers roughly 180 beds in sustainably managed facilities. Around 85% of them are climate-neutral, because the businesses offset their low CO2 emissions through a Brandenburg project called MoorFutures. Direct carbon offset measures in the region involving the revitalization of local peatlands do not only have a positive impact on climate, but also means tourism promotes regional nature conservation and preserves its own commercial basis as a region for nature tourism.
United Nations World Tourism Day on 27 September
