The six climate benches of the Rhine-Westerwald Nature Park are now in place on the banks of the River Wied in Waldbreitbach. They will also spend the winter there until February in order to catch the eye of as many visitors as possible, not only during the upcoming hiking season but also during the Waldbreitbach Christmas Village.
To illustrate the connections between our consumption, CO2 and the importance of forests, the Rhine-Westerwald Nature Park had the climate benches built. The consumption areas of clothing, air travel, paper consumption, car journeys, electricity consumption and meat consumption are thematized on them. The benches are oak trunks with an integrated seat. The respective subject area can be identified by the colored symbol. The bench is complemented by an information board and details of the stored Co2 content of each trunk.
How much Co2 is produced by our annual electricity consumption? How much Co2 is released during a flight? What impact does the production of clothing or meat have? In our lives, everything that is produced, moved and sold consumes energy and releases Co2 accordingly. Our forests are not only the green lungs of the planet - they also act as a buffer in the climate system. Trees absorb carbon dioxide (Co2) from the air and store it in the form of carbon in their biomass.
The benches are also a real eye-catcher and resting place for hikers and walkers. They are set up as a traveling exhibition in the nature park and moved twice a year. In this way, the climate benches can be made accessible to as many people as possible in the member communities of the nature park. With the construction of the climate benches, the nature park is taking up the annual theme "Nature protects climate - climate protects nature" of the national natural landscapes in Rhineland-Palatinate. The measure was 80% funded by the state through the Ministry for the Environment, Energy, Food and Forestry.
