Climate Witness: Ruth Hartwig Kruse, Germany

/ About Ruth
Ruth-Hartwig Kruse lives on a Hallig, one of ten tiny islands alongside the north German coast. Tidal floods are a part of life, but due to sea level rise the level of storm tides have increased in recent years causing erosion on the hill beneath her house.

Quote: “For 290 years my family has been running a farm on a small island off the western coast of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. Our island is extremely vulnerable to rising sea-level and in recent years the sea has come up to three metres from our home during storms. This is making life on our island increasingly difficult and should the sea level keep on rising and storm intensity increase in the future, I doubt that the next generation will have a safe future here.”

Ruth’s story: Atolls of the north

I live with my family, my mother, my husband, my four children, my daughter-in-law and my two grand children, on the Hallig (island) Nordstrandischmoor at the western coast of the most northern German state Schleswig-Holstein.

Halligen (ten small German islands on Schleswig-Holstein's North Sea coast) are extremely vulnerable to the rising sea level. In contrast to a larger northern German island like Sylt, the ten German Halligen do not have a dyke and storms regularly lead to flooding or “Land unter”. This happens roughly 30 times per year and when it does, all of us – the 18 inhabitants of Nordstrandischmoor plus our sheep – move to our Warft. The Warft, small hills on which our forefathers once built their houses, are often our last resort.
The mainland is not far away, but we are only linked to it via a narrow rail track dam on which we travel using a small lorry. If the water rises higher than the dam, we are completely cut off. Within the last 100 years sea level has been rising by roughly 0.3 metres in the Wadden Sea along the German North Sea coast. That does not appear to be a lot, but it also means that the level during storm tides rises higher and higher.

It is not enough to call for higher dams only and to leave the system unchanged. We are not just talking about us. Here we may have the money to protect ourselves from the rising water but what can the poorest of the poor do to adapt to dangerous climate change?

Read full testimonial and scientific background: www.panda.org/climatewitness/hartwig

Download large photos: https://intranet.panda.org/dropbox
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Timm Christmann
Tel: +49 69 79144 ext 204
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Nigel Allan, comms mgr.
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