Standing in a bog wearing rubber boots is pretty much the opposite of my typical workday. But this change of pace was more than welcome! Spending every day at a desk in my own four walls, trying to make our world a better place, often feels like the pitiful attempt to extinguish a forest fire with a glass of water (while someone keeps pouring oil on the other end).
Getting to pick up a shovel myself and go to bed at the end of the day with a directly visible result? That sounded like an offer I couldn’t refuse. And fortunately, I didn’t have to, because as a BiGC member, we’ve committed to regularly implementing biodiversity-promoting measures. So, participating in the Šumava Wilderness Camp didn’t even require taking vacation time.
About the Šumava Wilderness Camp
Booking “Wilderness Camp” as work time? Clever!
If that was your thought just now, I can understand it. The program’s name does initially sound more like a nice nature getaway than hard work. The truth lies somewhere in between – the program was deliberately designed as a mix of both.
The Wilderness Camp has been running for 3 years now, with each year focusing on bog restoration measures. Thanks to the support of the Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds, the whole program is organized and supervised by Na mysli (which translates to “in mind” in English), a non-profit organization in the Czech Republic that deals with global sustainability, climate change, and related aspects. Since 2023, Na mysli has also been the country coordinator for the European Climate Pact (as part of the Green Deal) for the Czech Republic.
In the Highland Bogs of Šumava
The Czech national park “Šumava” extends over 68,064 hectares along the Green Belt and borders directly on the Bavarian Forest. But it’s not just any national park – with its bog landscape, it’s geographically quite special. These types of ecosystems are typically found at northern latitudes, not at all typical for Central Europe. So how is it possible that a bog could form here, contrary to its natural distribution range (Canada, Alaska, Northern Europe, Siberia, and Southeast Asia)?
The answer is, as often: the last ice age, during which inland ice from Scandinavia and Alpine ice moved to where Šumava is today. This allowed local glaciers to form in the Bohemian Forest’s higher elevations. This process led to the formation of five glacial lakes on the Czech side: Laka, Prášilské jezero, Plešné jezero, Černé jezero, and Čertovo jezero. These lakes became the “seed cells” for the later bogs. At the same time, tundra vegetation established itself under the influence of the northern glacier. This tundra character has persisted in today’s peatlands, which remain preserved as ice age relics thanks to the special high-altitude climate.
Historical Drainage of the Bogs
Unfortunately, humans have really damaged this valuable ecosystem over the past centuries. Bog drainage began several centuries ago, starting in Šumava around the end of the 19th century – primarily for timber production. Later came industrial peat extraction as fuel and growing medium, as well as converting the land for agricultural use. All of this led to 70% of the bogs in Šumava being drained, with drastic consequences:
- Displacement of specialized species and loss of genetic diversity
- Habitat fragmentation and creation of unbalanced landscape hydrology
- CO2 release through peat decomposition, accelerating climate change and vice versa
- Lowering of groundwater levels
- Landscape warming due to missing cooling effect of wetlands
- Microclimate changes throughout the surrounding area
- Flood damage from lack of natural water retention
Rewetting and Restoration Measures
In 1991, this destruction was finally stopped when Šumava National Park was established, placing the highland bogs and bog forests under nature protection for the first time. Since 1999, comprehensive measures have been carried out under park administration to reverse the bog destruction. Within the EU-funded “Life for Mires” project (2018-2024), in collaboration with Bavarian Forest National Park, BUND Naturschutz Bayern, University of South Bohemia, and hundreds of volunteers, they achieved:
- 2,183 hectares of wetlands restored
- 35 kilometers of waterways restored
- 212 kilometers of drainage ditches restored/closed
- 1,185 hectares of degraded habitats improved overall
About two to four sites per year are restored annually in Šumava National Park. Many of these are in hard-to-reach areas requiring intensive physical, manual labor, making volunteer involvement essential for meeting restoration goals.
Volunteer Work at Šumava Wilderness Camp 2025
Day 1 + 2: A Creek, 35 Volunteers, and Lots and Lots of Stones
We spent the first two days on an already restored area that previously (like so many other bog sites) had little resemblance to bog landscape due to agricultural use. Among other things, the flowing creek Kořenský potok had been straightened. From an agricultural perspective, this makes perfect sense: natural creeks meander, regularly flood their floodplains, and “waste” lots of land. A straight channel carries water away more efficiently and creates additional usable area. That’s the idea. However, the promised benefits (flood protection, better yields) often backfire in practice:
- Flow velocity increases drastically – water rushes through much too fast!
- Groundwater levels drop as less water seeps in
- Flood risk increases downstream as all water masses arrive simultaneously
- The surroundings dry out, leading to landscape desertification
- Increased erosion – everything washes away directly during heavy rains
- Drought damage from missing water storage
- Loss of natural nutrient filtration – excess nutrients are carried away instead of being absorbed by the soil
Therefore, many rivers and creeks are now being restored – brought back to their natural course. This is exactly what happened with Kořenský potok – today it has been meandering picturesquely through the landscape again for 2 years and can withstand heavy rainfall. Standing in this idyllic landscape, it’s hard to imagine it once looked completely different.
Reversing the straightening of flowing waters is significantly more complex than the original destruction. We immediately felt this during our first work assignment, as we got to haul stones for two days – even though the restoration was supposedly already complete.
“Restoration” doesn’t mean the site can immediately be left to nature afterward to self-regulate from then on. Particularly in the first years after restoration, renewed intervention is frequently necessary. No matter how good the planning or how professional the implementation: it’s simply impossible to restore an area with such precision that problems can be ruled out afterward. Complex systems can’t just be “repaired.” And nature, with all its external influences and unpredictable events, can’t be precisely calculated either.
In the case of Kořenský potok, the problem was erosion caused by excessive flow velocities and water depth in some places. Instead of the waterway using its floodplains during rainfall, spreading out and releasing water to the landscape, more and more soil gets washed away and the water digs deeper and deeper.
OK, but why haul stones?
To counteract this, you need to somehow make the water flow shallower and slower. Physically, this only works by artificially raising the creek bed at the deepest points and installing obstacles at rapids to slow flow velocity. Both work excellently with stones. They function as artificial gravel bars and flow breakers, imitating what naturally develops in natural creeks over long periods.
We worked with granite stones – the same material as the naturally occurring rock in Kořenský potok. Our task was to transport these using buckets and wheelbarrows to the “problem spots” along the creek and then sink them into the creek bed (under professional guidance).
Day 3 + 4: Weeding Trees as a Conservation Measure
Our next task awaited in a bog that had been industrially mined in the past and later restored. Amid the vast, dark peat landscapes, some spots regenerate nicely with sedges and peat mosses, but in others hundreds of tiny green birch trees sprouted from the ground, having busily multiplied on their own. This is partly due to climate change – dry summers “kill” the mosses that should be growing there. Unfortunately, these little seedlings had to be prevented from becoming large, strong trees, hundreds of tiny green birch trees sprouted from the ground, having busily multiplied on their own. Unfortunately, these little seedlings had to be prevented from becoming large, strong trees.
Wait – everywhere trees are being planted for the climate, and here they need to come out FOR nature conservation?
This may sound paradoxical, but the goal here is to restore bogs, not create new forests. Birches unfortunately stand in the way for various reasons. First, while birches can manage with relatively little water, a bog would eventually dry out through birches too. Peat mosses also depend on direct sunlight to grow – and trees would shade the moss too much. The birches aren’t helpful here and can even be seen as a symptom of bog damage – in a healthy bog, birches would only establish sporadically and mainly in edge areas.
In the next step, artificial pools will be created there so new peat mosses can settle. These small water areas imitate the natural hollows of a healthy bog and create different moisture zones for various bog plants. Over the years, the mosses slowly grow beyond the pool edges and transform the artificial water holes into a natural bog mosaic.
Day 5 + 6: Building Dams, Repairing Dams
Bog drainage typically involves digging drainage ditches through which bog water can flow away. These unfortunately persist even when active drainage has long ceased, preventing a bog from rewetting itself. Therefore, an essential part of bog restoration work is building retention dams along the entire length of these ditches to fully block water outflow.
But even without such ditches, regulating the water balance in the bog and preventing uncontrolled water runoff is one of the most important measures. Dams help control water strategically and achieve water levels where peat mosses, sedges, and other bog plants can actually grow. Raising water levels can also stop further peat decomposition that typically occurs at degraded bog sites and releases massive amounts of CO2. Long-term, new peat can form there instead, storing CO2. Healthy bogs are incredibly efficient carbon sinks and, in the long-term balance, even better CO2 storage than rainforests.
During our last two working days at the Šumava Wilderness Camp, we transformed into busy beavers and both built a new retention dam and repaired two existing ones. The latter were no longer adequately supported and about to break through. Our work intervention fortunately prevented disaster just in time.
And in the End: Dirty Hands, but with a Good Feeling
It was a great feeling to be able to practically contribute to such a project and know at the end of the week: every bucket of stones, every birch seedling weeded, and every dam now restored helps bring a complex ecosystem back into balance.
I’m particularly grateful to the local staff who shared their incredible knowledge with us daily and dedicate themselves to protection and restoration even beyond the camp.
I can only recommend to every company: give your employees a break from their desks and provide them the opportunity to make such a direct impact for biodiversity. And to make it really worthwhile: become a member of Biodiversity in Good Company!
For me personally, participating in the camp was also a reminder that sustainable action often only becomes visible in small, concrete steps – whether you’re restoring on-site or developing concepts for a better world at your desk. In the end, what counts is that you start, participate, and take responsibility. Every small measure, no matter how tiny, can have a big long-term impact – sometimes even in the form of a small bog full of life.
