ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns knowledge dynamics and sustainable rural development in a post-socialist setting in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Communication and promotion instruments like brochures and information sheets as well as a hiking guide, a video, and guided tours helped to raise public awareness of moor degradation and its negative impacts on bio-diversity. The chapter examines a particular rural region in the Northeast of Germany in which the clash between a productivist and a bureaucratic mode of regulation can be clearly identified. The agricultural and food sectors remain important economic activities. Large parts of the fens have been drained to allow intensive agricultural production. Therefore, the focus of nature protection activities is on wetlands and birds. Nature conservation is also shaped by spatial planning. The federal states have their own state nature conservation laws that ensure the implementation of the federal law and provide the legal basis for most nature protection acts.
