Both Yahoo! News and Danhostel Ribe celebrated Earth Day by mentioning the Wadden Sea National Park in Denmark – though we did it in different ways.
At Danhostel Ribe we celebrated it by giving free bicycle rent and a map of the Wadden Sea National Park to all our facebook friends that visited us on the 22th – Earth Day. We had just bought 30 new bicycles, so we thought this was a fine way to celebrate both the day and the bikes – and at the same time let our guests experience this fantastic nature just outside our door.
Yahoo! News celebrated Earth Day by interviewing Gaute Hogh, publisher of the book 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear.
The Wadden Sea in Denmark was the first place that came to Hogh’s mind of the 100 places to go before they disseapear. The Wadden Sea is a low-lying coastal zone in Denmark where visitors can “walk on water” to see varied landscapes and migratory birds. Hogh fears what the rising sea levels will do to this place and its dynamic ecosystem.
At the hostel and in Ribe we know about this fear. We have seen the water level rise and the meadow outside the hostel being flooded. We have experienced the water level being almost at the top of the dikes at the Wadden Sea Coast in 1999 – and the only reason that we were not flooded was that the storm surge came by low tide. Had it come a few hours later by high tides our town – not only the meadow but also the streets and houses in Ribe town had been flooded.
So YES come and see the Wadden Sea before it disappears, but better: Listen to Gaute Hogh’s message so that we can enjoy this beautiful place also in the future:
“The whole purpose of this book was to show my children the effects of climate change,” Hogh says. “People usually show someone suffering and I wanted to show the positive side of it: If we don’t do anything, we’ll lose some of these beautiful 100 places.”
“One of my missions with the book is to show teenagers, if you don’t turn off the water or turn down the heat, these places will disappear,” Hogh says. “They may say, ‘Why should I do this?’ But if I show them these pictures, they start to see it another way.”
At Danhostel Ribe we were happy to notice that the interview sent a lot of people to our article about the Wadden Sea the last couple of days. We hope to see some of them at the hostel 
The photo left shows the hostel when the meadow is flooded.
The blog travelandleisure mentions some of the 100 places and ask for more ways to celebrate Earth Day – but you could also comment on this article.
