Location: near Kühnhaide in the Ore Mountain region at an elevation of approx. 730m to 770m above sea level

SAC area: Mothäuser Heide (domestic identification number: 7 E)

Brief description:
The Stengelhaide moor area was originally an elongated valley slope moor that drained into the Scharzen Pockau via the Stinkenbach Stream in the east and north and into the Preßnitz via the Krötenbach, Dreibächel, and Haselbach streams in the southwest. Running along the southern edge is the mill ditch constructed in 1551 for mining purposes. The removal of peat initiated in the Middle Ages intensified in 1920 with the construction of a peat processing factory and reached its peak between 1950 and 1990. Today, only the central eastern part of the moor still possesses remnants of the former peat beds. The western part of the Stengelhaide was spared from peat removal, but efficient drainage through the network of ditches there has had an impact.
While the western Stengelhaide contains mainly spruce moor woodlands rich in peat moss, the middle and eastern parts are characterized by birch forests and succession zones. Plants native to the moor such as peat mosses, cottongrasses, bog bilberries, and cranberries are found here.

Measures:
Initial revitalization measures were launched right after peat harvesting was discontinued from 1990 to 1992. Starting in 2000, the nature park took various select measures, in the peat removal areas especially.
When the SAC management plan was created, a hydrological survey was done of the moor (2009) that made it possible to make the established conservation and development measures for the environment types and the entire moor more concrete. Once the measures were defined in more detail, the ditches in the eastern and middle parts of the Stengelhaide were blocked to a great extent as part of the international project “Revitalization of the Moors Between Reitzenhain and Kalek in the Ore Mountains with Sharing of Expertise.” A total of 92 individual subprojects, in the form of dams and filling, were carried out both manually and with excavators.
Nature park “Erzgeibrge/Vogtland (Ore Mountaings/Vogtland)” continued the revitalization of the Stengelhaide with the project "Moorevital-2018-Fortgesetzter Moorschutz im Erzgebirge” (Vital Moor 2018 - Continued Moor Protection in the Ore Mountains). A total of 170 individual subprojects performed since 2018 now hinder the concentrated drainage of water from the western part of the Stengelheide. While simple filling was enough in the smaller ditches, trunk-reinforced peat dams and sheet piling dams had to be constructed to block the deep and wide ditches. Nature park employees manually constructed sheet piling dams for water retention in the sensitive and hard-to-reach parts of the moor.

More information can be found at  www.moorevital.sachsen.de

The various projects were financed with support from the funds of the “Landscape Care Directive” of the Free State of Saxony, the “Natural Heritage” directive of the German Federal Environmental Foundation, and the cooperation program “SN-CZ”.