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balance – because they have too few places to do it. Spaces for movement, open nature, these are social spaces too. That’s were people meet, the young and the old, the poor and the rich. A few examples of what needs to be tackled: • We need imagination! Whenever I go for a walk at Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin – my youngest daugh ter lives close by – I am fascinated by what has been created there. All kinds of gardens. Areas for skaters, for cyclists, for pedestrians. Thousands are out and about on a fi ne day. People living in the metropolis yearning for fresh air. This should also be possible in other cities. • One of the most depressing sights for me during the fi rst lockdown in 2020 was the barrier tape around the children’s playgrounds at Eilenriede, a large woodland in the centre of Hanover. Children need to move about, children need nature. They must be allowed to balance on tree trunks, build tree houses, marvel at plants. Gather mosses, pick fl owers, collect conkers. Play at the stream, splash in the water, throw stones, carve sticks. These are images of a good childhood in our part of the world. I do not want to idealise them. But moving through open nature, adventures in a pro tected space, that’s all a part of it. This must be possible again in our cities. It is unacceptable that families move to the country because they can no longer afford to live in the city and the surround ings are unsuitable for children. • We need learning places: these could be on al lotment sites, for example – as they have changed. Plants are not grown in neat and tidy rows anymo re, and the sites offer diversity. This also applies to cemeteries, which are no longer completely standardised. There are urn burial grounds, ash scattering grounds, woodland burial grounds for

dispersing the ashes beneath trees. Cemeteries in cities can be both places of remembrance and places for recreation. • Tree sponsorship schemes already exist. In some places fruit trees are auctioned. And doesn’t it seem sheer madness that fruit is bought in su permarkets while it falls from trees unharvested and disregarded? • It is a good thing that agricultural fi elds are changing and farmers are turning from monocultu res. I have noticed more and more fi elds that are edged with strips of sun fl owers, for example. It is also interesting to see that near-natural hedges are reappearing. Wood is piled up for insects to nestle in – not to mention bug hotels. • Diversity has become a highly recognised socio logical category. We want to consciously co-exist with diversity and consider this enrichment. This diversity must also be re fl ected in our landscapes. In short, we need a widespread movement for our contemporary world. The issue is to see ourselves as part of creation, or speaking secular ly, as part of the whole. Humans are not the chief of everything, not the crown of creation. But they can be creative, think out of the box: habitats in big cities, green facades, play areas in the centre of town. We – each and every one of us – must change our thinking. And so must politics. Cities should not be car-friendly but people-friendly. No, the earth will not become paradise. But we can create reminiscences of the Garden of Eden. And we can look and learn anew, marvel at what nature accomplishes – in the gardens of this earth, in landscapes, in forests. This brings a verse in the New Testament to mind: ‘See how the fl owers of the fi eld grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even

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