Red Moor (Rhön)
Coordinates: 50°28′0″N 9°58′50″E / 50.46667°N 9.98056°E
The Red Moor (German: Rotes Moor) is a raised bog in the Hessian part of the Rhön Mountains in Germany. It lies within the eponymous nature reserve in the Rhön Biosphere Reserve and is part of the Europe-wide conservation system, Natura 2000. The Red Moor has an area of 50 hectares and is the second largest raised bog in the High Rhön after the Black Moor (66.4 hectares). For 175 years, until 1984, peat was cut here. The interior of the raised bog is severely damaged, especially as a result of the many years of peat cutting. Its perimeters are however still largely undisturbed areas that are better and more typically developed than the Black Moor, 8 kilometres away. In 1979 large-scale renaturalisation measures began.
The Red Moor is the largest raised bog in Hesse, followed by the moor in the Breungeshain Heath (4 ha) on the uplands of the Vogelsberg. In the Rhön it is the second largest bog after the Black Moor; others being the Great Moor (Großes Moor, 8 ha) and Little Moor (Kleines Moor, 2 ha) on the Stirnberg, and the Moorlein on the Rasenberg. As a result of centuries of peat extraction, which lasted until the 1980s, only an area of about five hectares is left as a core zone. The Red Moor is divided into two areas: The Great Red Moor (Großes Rotes Moor, formerly 32 hectares of raised bog – today just under 11 ha) and the Little Red Moor (Kleines Rotes Moor, formerly 7 hectares of raised bog – today 1.7 ha). It lies about five kilometres southeast of the Wasserkuppe on the B 278 federal highway between the village of Ehrenberg (part of Wüstensachsen) on the Hessian side and the town of Bischofsheim an der Rhön on the Bavarian side of the state border.
...
Wikipedia