The German Green Belt (Grünes Band Deutschland in German) is a project of Bund Naturschutz (German only), one of Germany’s largest environmental groups. The project was begun in 1989. On the former inner German border, there is a strip of land approximately 1400 km (870 miles) long (with an area of more than 100 km² / 39 mi²) that remained nearly untouched since the construction of the Berlin Wall. The government of GDR wanted a distance between the fence and the actual border, in order to arrest or even shoot people who managed to pass the fence. It stretches from Travemünde on the Baltic to the Czech border, near Hof in Bavaria. A number of endangered species can be found there. read more…