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The Week in Germany: Culture September 22, 2006 Groundstone Laid in Stralsund for Grand Aquarium One of the world's biggest aquariums is under construction in the Baltic seaport town of Stralsund. The "Ozeaneum" will feature 40 viewing tanks, encompass six million liters of water and exhibit 7,000 animals, according to dpa. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who welcomed U.S. President George W. Bush to her northern German home constituency in Stralsund last July, was back in town on September 15 to lay the groundstone for the mammoth marine facility along with Harald Ringstorff, the Minister President of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Due to open in spring 2008, the "Ozeaneum" will take visitors on an "underwater journey" from the shallow Baltic Sea to deep, nutrient-rich Arctic waters. The costs of the €50 million ($63 million) construction will be met by the federal government, the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state government and the German Oceanographic Museum. According to its planners, the "Ozeaneum" is destined to become one of the "top ten" aquariums in the world and will be comparable to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco and the Oceanario in Lisbon. Merkel praised it as "a symbiosis of nature and culture" through its unique construction. The "Ozeaneum" will include a tunnel aquarium, giant tanks full of sharks hunting swarms of herring and mackerel, and the longest free-standing escalator in Germany ferrying visitors between the buildings' four levels. Penguins, stingrays and lobster will be among other animals on view. At the same time, life-size preserved whales and giant squids will be displayed in a special "giants of the sea" exhibit. Other educational exhibits will focus on marine life in the Baltic Sea, as well as on marine research and use. Upon its completion, about a million visitors are expected to flock to
the "Ozeaneum" every year. With some 650,000 visitors annually,
the German Oceanographic Museum is already among the ten most frequented
museums in Germany.
In a separate development, Joe Borg, the European fisheries and maritime affairs commissioner, stressed the need to foster a common EU approach in these sectors at the Maritime Policy Conference of the Baltic Sea Area in Kiel on Thursday. Uwe Döring, Europe minister for Germany's northern Schleswig-Holstein state, said the booming Baltic Sea region provides plenty of scientific, technological and economic opportunities. Speaking to journalists aboard a research vessel, he set a goal of developing the Baltic Sea into a model maritime region for Europe and making it the cleanest and safest sea possible by 2015. Germany's federal government has declared that marine and Baltic Sea policies will be among the core issue areas on its agenda when it takes over the rotating presidency of the 25-nation EU for six months in January 2007. Links: |
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