Even before the estab­lish­ment of the nation­al park, there was intense dis­cus­sion about which pro­tec­tion sta­tus is best suit­ed for the flood­plain land­scape with its strong anthro­pogenic trans­for­ma­tion, that of a nature park, that of a bios­phere reserve or a nation­al park. If the Bran­den­burg politi­cians nev­er­the­less decid­ed in favor of nation­al park sta­tus in two com­plex leg­isla­tive process­es in 1995 and 2006, it is also because the Low­er Oder Val­ley is cer­tain­ly the riv­er land­scape in Ger­many that is best suit­ed for a nation­al park. A very nar­row nation­al park that was cre­at­ed on the Elbe at short notice to accom­pa­ny the riv­er was abol­ished after a few years, a process that has so far been unique in Ger­many. Nev­er­the­less, it was clear to all those involved that, unlike the Pol­ish Zwis­chen­oder­land between Ost- and West­oder, the south­ern Ger­man part does not yet have a nation­al park qual­i­ty, it is rather a nation­al park in the process of becom­ing and grow­ing, a devel­op­ment nation­al park. In the future, accord­ing to the will of the Bran­den­burg leg­is­la­ture, 50 per­cent should be tak­en out of use and des­ig­nat­ed as total reserves Zone I and Zone II and 50 per­cent should con­tin­ue to be used for agri­cul­ture, albeit extensively.

How­ev­er, this will only be pos­si­ble once the ongo­ing cor­po­rate land real­lo­ca­tion has been com­plet­ed, which, how­ev­er, is still many years away, as the respon­si­ble Bran­den­burg author­i­ties want to focus the pri­vate nation­al park asso­ci­a­tion on the total reserve zones, ulti­mate­ly, as they them­selves admit, in order to elim­i­nate it in this way as an annoy­ing com­peti­tor for state admin­is­tra­tive action. Today, there­fore, only around 15 per­cent of the nation­al park area has been des­ig­nat­ed as a total reserve by law, but in fact there are more areas that are no longer used or no longer used as intensively.

Shield National Park

One of the main rea­sons why Brandenburg’s only nation­al park is still far from hav­ing at least the required 50 per cent (inter­na­tion­al­ly it is already 75 per cent) of des­ig­nat­ed total reserves today and in the fore­see­able future is that the respon­si­ble Bran­den­burg author­i­ties do not allo­cate the already des­ig­nat­ed or planned total reserves to the state of Bran­den­burg, even though the state of Bran­den­burg has more than enough land in the pro­ce­dure area of the cor­po­rate land con­sol­i­da­tion, but to the small, pri­vate nation­al park asso­ci­a­tion. This is unique in Ger­many. In all oth­er pro­tect­ed areas, the land that des­ig­nates total reserves also takes own­er­ship of them and thus does not bur­den pri­vate owners.

In addi­tion to this delay in the cre­ation of the nation­al park by the Bran­den­burg state gov­ern­ment itself, there are oth­er prob­lem areas that nature con­ser­va­tion has to deal with. As a rule, it is a mat­ter of con­flict­ing inter­ests as they exist all over the world in and around nature reserves. For all of these prob­lem cas­es, how­ev­er, there are solu­tions that both sides can live with. How­ev­er, this still needs to be worked on. There are no insur­mount­able opposites.

Six typ­i­cal prob­lem areas are described below: