The life rafts in the hands of interns
1.000 life rafts - that is the goal by 2030 of the project "Biodiversity in Farmers' Hands", in which we were able to participate as part of our internship at WOERLE. Together with the WOERLE farmers and the population in Flachgau and in Mondseeland, flowering areas, piles of wood or stones, perennials, hedges and everything that creeps and crawls are sought or newly created to create living spaces, or rather "survival spaces" for native plants and insects.
Alina Bernsmann, Magdalena Sattler and John Spitzauer. We are three students from Flachgau and did an internship at Gebrüder WOERLE Ges.mbH in the summer of 2021, where we are heavily involved with the topic of biodiversity. Since we are all very deeply rooted in the region, this project is very important to us, as it makes an important contribution to preserving a diverse nature in our homeland.
Our main task was the documentation of plants and insects on the respective life rafts, which were newly added or already existed by using the app "Flora Incognita" identified and photographed. This activity offers many small highlights for us, as one often does not take the time to observe insects and plants closely. And it makes you very aware of how much is actually happening on your own space.
The newly recorded life rafts are then entered on a digital map and with the help of photos and videos, the extent and location of the area, but especially the biodiversity and the beauty of nature, are shown.
We gained further insights into the local diversity of species when we tended the flower strips created at Woerle on the company and cleared the weeds. The gardener Franz Hönegger stood by us with advice and action. We got a lot of professional input from him about the benefits of many plants and their correct care, but also about the consequences of wrong actions in green space care.
Another day we were dealing with weeds – the glandular balsam. It originally comes from the Himalayan region of East India and very quickly displaces more valuable native plants. For one day we supported a farmer in Tiefgraben in combating it and completely freed an area at the edge of the stream from the "threatening competition".
Of course, the focus was always on the work, but probably the most interesting part was the talks with the farmers and the insight into their businesses. It was amazing to see how many different characters there are among the farmers and how different the business philosophies are.
Whether taking pictures in the field, fighting weeds or having interesting conversations - it never got boring!
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