A large floodplain nature reserve in the Wümme valley, protecting wet meadows and meadow birds in Bremen.
Borgfelder Wümmewiesen
Borgfelder Wümmewiesen is a nature reserve (Naturschutzgebiet) located in the northeastern part of Bremen, Germany, within the districts of Borgfeld and Oberneuland. Stretching across roughly 688 hectares in the floodplain of the Wümme river, it is the largest nature reserve in the city of Bremen and the second-largest in the entire state. The protected area consists primarily of open, wet grassland shaped by regular winter flooding, interlaced with ditches, small ponds, and reedbeds.
The reserve is especially recognized for its importance to meadow-breeding birds, including lapwings, black-tailed godwits, snipe, and corncrakes, as well as for its role as a staging and wintering site for migratory waterfowl such as ducks, geese, and swans. Much of the landscape is managed as a semi-natural cultural landscape, though parts have been allowed to develop into a naturally dynamic floodplain ecosystem.
Designated as a protected area on 3 April 1987, following its inclusion in a federal program for nationally significant nature conservation in 1985, the Borgfelder Wümmewiesen is also a designated EU Bird Protection Area (Vogelschutzgebiet) and partially overlaps with the Untere Wümme FFH site. Since 2006, the reserve has been managed by the Stiftung NordWest Natur in cooperation with WWF Germany, with the Senator für Umwelt, Bau und Verkehr acting as the responsible authority.
