What can Ljubljana moors offer a visitor?

There are very few places in the world, where an area with such rich history, archaeological heritage, special ethnological features and highly valued nature would spread along the threshold of the capital city, reachable by foot, bike or public transport.  Ljubljansko barje (hereinafter referred to as >the Barje<) is not merely a place where one can recover from the city bustle, sultry weather and smog, Ljubljansko barje is a classroom in the open air.

The Barje is a tectonic depression filled with more than 100 metres thick alluvial deposits of sand and clay. Above the latter, an extensive shallow lake used to spread after the last Ice Age; it was formed soon after the alluvial deposits prevented the Ljubljanica river from running off the Barje. In the mid-2nd millennium BC, the lake began to turn into moors. Owing to the high groundwater level and special chemical conditions at the moors, peat began to form. This is a layer of dead parts of various plants, which due to the lack of oxygen do not rot but begin to accumulate, while the layer of peat thickens gradually. Until the plants that have grown on peat are still in touch with groundwater and nutrients, we speak of a fen. In favourable conditions, however, the layer of peat can thicken to such an extent that its upper part can no longer be supplied with groundwater. A bog is formed; the only water source needed by plants is rainwater, and the quantity of nutrients is negligible. In this modest environment, only the special adaptable plants can survive, and it is no coincidence that carnivorous plants, such as sundew, have developed in these extreme conditions.

At the time when the moors were restrained with water, the former inhabitants of the Barje lived in settlements built on wooden piles rammed into the lake floor. This is why these settlements were called pile or lake dwellings. The finds, however, have shown that the Barje had been periodically settled much earlier, even from the Stone Age onwards. The great construction and drainage works, which began to be implemented out in the 19th century, unveiled numerous sites, and as early as in 1875 the first scientific archaeological excavations took place on our soil under the direction of Karl Dežman, nature historian and custodian at the former Provincial Museum (Dežman's pile dwellings near Ig). Since then, much work has been carried out by numerous generations of archaeologists, who have found remains of 23 large pile dwellings and countless artefacts, on the basis of which a mosaic of the Barje pile dwellers' life has been gradually put together. Earthenware, tools made of bones and horns, copper artefacts, boats made of tree trunks . and 5,600 years old wheel and axle of a two-wheeler - the crown jewels of the Barje finds.

Still, it is not only the Barje soil that hides in itself remains of the past. The bed of the Ljubljanica river, too, constitutes one of the most significant archaeological sites in Slovenia. Under the direction of Karl Dežman and with the aid of divers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the first underwater archaeological research in Europe was carried out at the end of the 19th century in Ljubljana. The artefacts found in the Ljubljanica river, those from prehistory to the modern age, clearly indicate that the river had a cultic meaning.

The first to embark on the reshaping of the natural image of the Barje with all earnest were the Romans. Owing to the relatively heavy traffic, they partially regulated the Ljubljanica and then built the first road across the Barje, which thus found itself squeezed between the two important Roman settlements, i.e. Emona (the present-day Ljubljana) and Nauportus (Vrhnika), and the port at today's Podpeč, where stone blocks needed for construction works in Ljubljana were cut.

The greatest spatial intervention into the Barje was no doubt the ambitious drainage project conceived at the end of the 18th century by Gabriel Gruber. With this project, they attempted to curb floods to the greatest possible extent and to make soil suitable for cultivation. Between Grajski hrib and Golovec they dug a canal, deepened and regulated the Ljubljanica bed in the town itself, and built a network of bigger and smaller channels at the Barje. Thus, the characteristic rectangular parcelling out of fields, separated between each other by drainage ditches, was brought about.

This spatial intervention was followed by colonisation (from 1830 onwards), i.e. settling of volunteers on still marshy Barje, with their only obligation being maintenance of drainage channels and preparation of plots suitable for agriculture. The Barje, however, turned out to be not particularly kind to the new settlers. As the construction of buildings, roads and cart tracks in the manners known till then was ineffective on the soft, subsiding and floating marsh soil, a new specific mode of building houses on piles was developed. Even nowadays, however, the roads and cart tracks are not built of stone material, but of brushwood and covered by turf, so that hey actually >float< on the Barje. Before long it was also established that the Barje soil was rather poor for the growing of arable crops, but then incomparably better as fuel. At the time of colonisation, the Barje was covered by several metres thick layer of peat. The peat cutting expanded into a true industry, for peat was used not only by the Ljubljana citizens for heating, but it also propelled trains, steamships, sugar refinery, gunpowder factory . The peat supplies seemed infinite, but the fact is that in contact with air the peat sinks into itself and moulders. The great business thus soon fell to ruin, and today only some rare patches of the former peat bog can still be found, recognised by the fact that the area is situated a metre or two higher than the rest of the plain.

A true wealth of the Barje has been recognised only recently. Here we are dealing with an interlacement of cultural landscape and nature, in which numerous plant and animal species as well as their habitats have been preserved, which in modern Europe happen to be a true rarity. Marshes and wetlands have been drained and subsequently changed into  intensively farmed land in many places, the same as in our country, except that even more thoroughly and consistently. As it has been estimated that between 70% and 90% of all wetlands have been irreversibly lost in Europe, it is not surprising that 61% of vulnerable and endangered plant and animal species and no less than 78% of vulnerable and endangered habitats depend on wetlands alone.

So what is so special at the Barje? For the beginning, let us look into the sky.

Although the Barje plain covers no more than 1% of Slovene territory, a half of all Slovene birds are known to breed here, and even more numerous are birds that overwinter or rest on the Barje during migration. Altogether, no less than 250 species can be seen here. The most deserving for their diversity and numbers are the wet meadows - those that have not yet been transformed into arable land due to land drainage and are still being farmed and mown in traditional, extensive way: The irregularly and late in the season mown meadows are, without additional aid of various fertilisers, an ideal habitat not only for birds but for many other species as well, and are, on top of it all, most pleasing to our eyes.

In the meadows, hedges and low shrubbery of the Barje one can quickly notice or hear some of the most characteristic wetland birds species. The Corn Crake (Crex crex), Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata), Common Quail (Coturnix coturnix), Eurasian Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), Scops Owl (Otus scops), Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra), Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia) and Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) are those that have been included on the list of most endangered species in Europe and worldwide, but can still be seen fairly often in this part of the country.

The abundance of water and particularly the extensive network of drainage channels with well-developed water vegetation are home to glittering, gaily coloured and skilful flier - dragonflies. Many amongst the 48 species inhabiting the Barje are considered endangered, but here their populations are still fairly numerous.

In spring nights, we can hear vivacious European Tree Frog's croaking echoing all over the Barje. The interlacement of different types of standing and running waters is highly significant for numerous amphibians. At the Barje, we shall find no less than 70% of all species living in Slovenia, such as the Yellow-belied Toad (Bombina variegata), Alpine Crested Newt (Triturus carnifex), European Tree Frog (Hyla arborea) and the Green Toad (Bufo viridis). The amphibians that prefer forests as their home, warn us with their yearly marches over the roads on the edge of the Barje that this place is an important breeding site for them.

Wet meadows are inhabited by numerous species of gaily-coloured butterflies. There are no less than 89 of them -  twice as many as on the entire British Isles. As in many other butterflies, their existence is predominantly dependent on unfertilised grasslands. At the Barje, some butterfly species are very common indeed, such as the Small Pearlbordered Fritillary (Clossiana selene), False Heath Fritillary (Melitaea diamina) and the Large Copper (Lycaena dispar). The Scarce Large Blue (Maculinea teleius) and the Alcon Blue (Maculinea alcon) have greater demands, for they fully depend on a single foodplant (Great Burnet and Marsh Gentian respectively) and on certain species of host ants, which are the main diet of their caterpillars. At the Barje, the last larger populations of Tufted Marbled Skipper (Carcharodus flocciferus) can be found. At places we can still chance upon the False Ringlet (Coenonympha oedippus), the small brown butterfly from the list of seven critically endangered butterfly species in Europe. Together with wet grasslands, which used to be mown as late as in July and August, but have been replaced by drained and intensively farmed and fertilised meadows and fields, it has totally disappeared from
the greater part of Europe and is now considered the most endangered European butterfly species.

The Barje meadows are green for a rather short period, for in early spring they are covered by a dark red carpet of  the Snake's Head Fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris) and glittering yellow Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris). Later on, they are full of white infructescenses of Cottongrass (Eriophorum sp.), Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) and Valerian (Valeriana officinalis). Amongst them, several species of meadow orchids burst into blossom, such as the Early March Orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata), Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata), Lax-flowered Marsh Orchid (Orchis palustris), Fragrant Orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea) and, at one site only, at the European level endangered Fen Orchid (Liparis loeselii). During the summer, the flowers of Betony (Betonica officinalis) tinge the Barje meadows red, in August the gentle white flowers of Bog Star (Parnassia palustris) begin to blossom, while in the autumn, as the last one in the year, the Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale) can be seen in full bloom.. All these variegated colours are supplemented by the chirping of insects and singing of birds.

Due to its unique features, everybody will be able to find and experience something at the Barje, let this be a bird, a rare plant, mysterious history, different art styles or human inventiveness through time. But while visiting and admiring it, let us not forget: we will be able to visit and admire it for many more years only if respect it - respect its natural environments and all the inhabitants in them.