Green Future For Iron Curtain

With the support of former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, plans for a nature reserve along what was once the 'Iron Curtain' move forward.

1 minute read

July 28, 2003, 7:00 AM PDT

By Connie Chung


"German and other European environmental groups have devised a plan to create nature parks out of the no man's land that separated the Soviet bloc from the West....Kept forcibly free of people during more than 40 years of the Cold War, the border between Eastern and Western Europe became a refuge for plants and animals....Although the idea of making parks along former Cold War borders has been around since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the conference was the first time that representatives of all the border countries had met to discuss the feasibility of having parkland run the length of what was the Iron Curtain." Mikhail Gorbachev, who is currently president of the environmental organization, Green Cross International, commented, "Ecology isn't something we can only leave to politicians."

Thanks to Connie Chung

Saturday, July 26, 2003 in The Chicago Tribune

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