Paper short abstract:

In the 1990s when Europe was re-integrating, a residue population of the black grouse on the German-Czech border caused a controversy over the permeability of the border and nature protection. We present a retrospective of this controversy based on archival material and other data.

Paper long abstract:

At the end of the Cold War, enthusiasm was high for tearing down borders and re-uniting people and regions. However, the military-controlled border zones, today known as the European Green Belt, provided safe spaces for many species, including rare ones. In the early 1990s, a residue black grouse population lived at the Czech-German border in the Upper Palatine Forest. This remaining population was at the centre of a controversy over the permeability of the border and the need to protect nature.

Based on numerous ethnographic fieldtrips in Czechia and Germany, a review of local media and archival material, we gave a closer look to the arguments of opposing sides as well as approaches of a cross-border project aiming to save the black grouse population. These reached from the exclusion of people from the border area to creating forms of conviviality.

What we show is not only controversies and antagonisms between human species and other species, but also among non-humans. In the retrospective, we can identify people on several sides of these antagonisms, and various animal species that potentially endanger other species and forms of human management that is needed to perpetuate a special type of biotope by cutting down certain plants.

We reconstruct the story in retrospective, however positioning ourselves in this old case was still awkward and not easy due to many interests of many actors, whose needs or claims were legitimate, however contradicting the needs and claims of other actors.