Nederland - Zwartemeer, Bargerveen

After the last ice age - about 10 thousand years ago - the climate began to grow warmer and wetter. Sphagnum moss began to grow in the stagnant waters. The peat continued to grow and to spread. To the east of the Hondsrug - a ridge of sand that is mainly located in the Dutch province Drenthe - it developed into the enormous Bourtange peat bog, which at one time measured 3.000 square kilometres.

The layer of peat became so thick that it even began to grow up high against the sides of the Hondsrug. On the edge of the Bargerveen, the peat covered the Hondsrug completely. The Bargerveen is the only large area of the Bourtange peat bog still surviving in the Netherlands. It is now a nature reserve of more than 2.000 hectares with one of the last areas of living peat.

A peat bog is anything but flat and monotonous. The area is characterized by a wide variety of landscapes: swamp, grassland, heather, forest and water. The northern part of the Bargerveen is one large stretch of water. It is a real paradise for birdlife, as one can see from a large bird hide (PiP4).

Since 2006 the Bargerveen is part of the Internationaler Naturpark Bourtanger Moor-Bargerveen (Bourtanger Moor-Bargerveen International Nature Park), a nature reserve located on both sides of the border between the Netherlands and Germany. The Dutch part of the nature reserve was founded in 1992 as Natuurreservaat Bargerveen.