Less is more. About nine hectares of previously low-cut lawns on campus are now only mowed once or twice a year. That is good for biodiversity. Thanks to the Blooming Campus Initiative, many species of insects can now be found there. Some of them are quite rare, such as the knapweed longhorn bee and the plantain fritillary. After the lawns were allowed to grow, ten to forty times more insects were found on these spaces, depending on the area.

Sources and additional information

In order to counteract the loss of biodiversity, the Blooming Campus Initiative has been active since 2019, striving for more nature and urban wilderness on the open spaces around Freie Universität Berlin. Natural history tours, events, and scientific monitoring are part of the program. For example, every second Saturday of the month, the “fire bugs,” a group of children between the ages of three and six whose parents are students or staff at Freie Universität, meet to learn through playful means about topics related to biodiversity. The Blooming Campus Initiative cooperates with the Lichterfelder Weidelandschaft, the Urbanity and Diversity Project, and the German Wildlife Foundation.

• Blooming Campus
• Article in campus.leben about butterfly monitoring, “Weißt du, wie viel’ Falter fliegen?” (in German)