Out and about again in Babelsberg Park: inside and outside

If you want to enter the Babelsberg Palace Park by land, you have to go through one of the gates, because a high fence surrounds the park next to the Havel.

For the park's creator, Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, the enclosure was important; "the presence of a protective wall" must be welcomed as something "highly practical, and often necessary for quiet and safe enjoyment". The prince took a portion of the landscape, staked it out, and reshaped it into a lovelier version of itself.

Different rules applied and apply there than outside. For example, a dog may only be walked indoors on a short, tear-resistant leash. This is not stipulated by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, but by the Brandenburg dog owner regulations, which are enforced by the Potsdam public order office.

In this column, Heike Holdinghausen writes about nature and how humans shape and destroy it. The setting is the Babelsberg Palace Park, where she has been walking almost every day for years. It's never boring because the park is 124 hectares in size and its network of paths covers over 20 kilometers. This is only half the size of Berlin's Tiergarten, but almost three times larger than the Vatican.

Dog owners therefore face patrols from representatives of the public order office and the castle foundation. The former have an even worse reputation than the latter because they are not only allowed to complain but also to impose fines. Dogs running loose are sanctioned because they disturb other visitors and, above all, could damage the garden artwork. For example, by digging in it or peeing against one of the pastel green flower pots.

The leash requirement is very controversial among dog owners. In addition to the reference to the dog owner regulations, the Schlösserstiftung sometimes argues with the species protection that the dog leash serves. The foundation points out that meadow breeders such as skylarks could actually nest in the park's extensive meadows if dogs weren't constantly traipsing over their clutches.

This argument particularly angers many dog ​​owners, as they see themselves as animal and nature lovers per se and are therefore offended by the accusation of destroying nature in the form of endangered birds during their walks. Secondly, they accuse the Castle Foundation of only caring about species protection if it means they can discipline dog owners. She would be only too happy to flood the dry meadow in the lower, southern part of the park again and turn it back into the “Great Lake” that once existed, even though all sorts of things are now blooming there.

However, when viewed in light, the foundation is admittedly right. Dogs running freely endanger breeding meadow birds. For the sake of the skylark, it would be appropriate if dog owners kept their pets on a leash even without regulation, as they are not only perceived as a threat by this potential prey animal.

Attempts to talk to dog owners about this fact usually lead to nothing, because their dog is closer to them than any bird that can breed elsewhere. After all, Brandenburg is large and in places quite sparsely populated.

However, space for skylarks is even more scarce outside than inside, because here it is not the castle foundation that controls the landscape, but the world market for agricultural raw materials. His rule is brutal, so today we're back to staking out parts of the landscape. Unlike Pückler, nature should be allowed to develop its own version of itself in the protected areas, wild, not lovely.

The protected areas are about as popular with the rural population as the leash requirement is among dog owners in the park.