Living Cultural Heritage
Spreewald Fishing
Fishing in Spreewald has a long tradition, inextricably linked to the settlement of this water-rich lowland of the river Spree. Probably the oldest subsistence activity in the Spreewald, it is part of the everyday culture of the local population.
In the past, fishing was essential for supplementing the often-meager lunch. Today, it is primarily the care and maintenance of fish stocks and the preservation of a centuries-old tradition.
After the communities around Burg (Lower Sorbian Bórkowy) acquired state fishing rights in river Spree and its tributaries within the Burg municipal boundaries in April 1927, the “Fishing Community of Burg and Surrounding Areas” was founded in 1952. Even then, care and preservation of the old Sorbian cultural heritage was enshrined as one of the community’s goals.
The “Community of Wendish/Sorbian Spreewald Fishermen of Burg and Surrounding Areas” was founded on November 30, 1991. This community comprises 17 fishing groups with approximately 150 members in the districts of Spree-Neiße (Lower Sorbian Sprjewje-Nysa), Dahme-Spreewald (Lower Sorbian Dubja-Błota), Oberspreewald-Lausitz (Lower Sorbian Górne Błota-Łužyca) and the city of Cottbus/Chósebuz.
Existing fishing rights are leased by the community, and the resulting contiguous area is used for communal fishing.
Fishing requires completion of a legally required, comprehensive special training course. Spreewald fishermen still use single- and triple-walled gill nets, drag nets and traps to catch whitefish, pike, tench, zander, eel and burbot. In keeping with tradition, they manufacture their own fishing gear.
Knitting nets for the construction of traps and landing nets as well as the setting of gill nets, such as those used in the rivers, are actively practiced and passed on to interested parties.
Annual stocking measures, as well as monitoring water engineering measures and nature conservation projects, are among the community’s key tasks. Good cooperation and exchange with the neighboring “Association of Spreewald Fishermen of Lübbenau and Surrounding Areas” is maintained.
The community participates in discussion and roundtables on the development of the Spreewald. Social awareness of this unique tradition is proactively promoted through participation in regional festivals, lectures, production of film documentation, and a website.
Challenges for future Spreewald fishermen are the effects of climate change on the waterways and the, as yet unresolved, management of long-term decline in the Spree’s water volumes as a result of the phase-out of coal mining in Lusatia.
