German Playground an Isle of Plight

The invisible hands of the howling North Sea wind sculpted the craggy sand dunes and alabaster beaches that are this rugged island’s most bewitching lures for bathers and bird-watchers who have flocked here for 150 years.

The healing salt air, crashing waves and remove from the hectic mainland enchant visitors to this obscure but wildly popular playground for Germany’s rich and famous. But for all that the slender island owes to the elements, the last thing anyone here wants to do is let nature take its course.

Without the continuous intervention of man and his money, Sylt would literally be sunk, reclaimed by the sea and air that, like temperamental artists, have repeatedly shaped and shattered the slender spit for 8,000 years.

Local authorities annually spend millions to dredge the seabed, reclaiming tons of sand to replenish beaches sucked clean by the pounding surf and winter storms--a testament to the determined fight being put up by those guarding Sylt (pronounced “zult”).

But it is a battle they know they will lose, perhaps even within their lifetimes. By 2050, the shallow island will be severed at its narrowest points and the hotels and condos now valued for their seaside vantage could fall victim to geology’s continuing drama.

“It’s not nonsense to say the island is disappearing. It is, and it would be gone faster without these measures, but we’re still talking in geologic time,” says Gerd P. Werner, a burly, bearded activist with the environmentalist Greens party and a practitioner of homeopathic medicine.

Scientists a few years ago proposed relocating homes and hotels along the western coast to higher ground inland but were laughed out of planning meetings, says conservationist Lothar Koch.

“You can’t get owners to voluntarily move their houses, and visitors coming here want to be able to look from their rooms to the sea,” he says with a note of resignation. “It was unrealistic.”

Some stately houses, including the Cliffender mansion near the town of Kampen, are being defended with additional private means such as sand-filled booms along the shoreline.

Nature Lovers Suggest Change of Focus

Conservationists such as Koch, in a quandary about how to save the unique birds and sea creatures of the island’s large Wattenmeer Nature Preserve, suggest catering to environmentally conscious tourists instead of the jet set.

But residents of Kampen, such as Gogaertchen bistro owner Rolf Seiche, bent on absorbing the beauty and solace as long as it lasts, seem little troubled by the threats of time and Mother Nature.

“The peak of German society comes here and always has,” Seiche says, rattling off the politicians and prominent artists known only to Germans, who make up 97% of the island’s visitors. “Sure, the coastal erosion will be a problem in 200 years, but today we can still enjoy it.”

Indeed, a classic debate is in perpetual motion here between the more ecologically oriented residents and the vast majority, who make their living from the onslaught of tourists. Visitors can number 100,000 on summer weekends.

The island has 300 restaurants--four of them awarded Michelin stars--and every manner of diversion, from golf and para-gliding to rental skates, surf boards and bicycles that outnumber the 21,000 year-round population.

Spending $10 million a year to put sand on beaches that wind and waves will soon take away may seem wasteful, but it isn’t, says Helge Jansen, a resort owner and mayor of the settlement of Rantum.

“The federal government gets tax revenue of 380 million marks [$170 million] a year from Sylt, making this coastal maintenance a pretty good investment,” he says.

“There are a lot of issues where we fight each other, especially on development, but we are united on the need for coastal defense,” says Jansen of the oft-contentious clan of leaders from Sylt’s 10 communities.

Businesses Employ 4,000 From Mainland

With virtually every adult on the island catering to the elite and 4,000 more commuting from the mainland daily, Sylt is a vital employer in tiny Schleswig-Holstein state.

Most of the island’s mere 40 square miles of surface stands just one or two stories above sea level, exposing the long, narrow peninsulas--less than half a mile wide in some places--to the ravages of winter storms and rising sea levels caused by global warming. Thatched cottages dating back a century and surrounded by wattle fences are the only texture to the landscape in the vast shallow expanses.

Because coastal defense is considered a national responsibility, most of the costs of the sand reclamation are covered by the federal government in Berlin and the rest by state coffers.

Islanders insist there is no risk of taxpayer revolt against the spending to keep wealthy Sylt’s beaches above water, but the amount authorities are willing to spend on the effort is a matter of annual debate.

“We need catastrophes to drive the issue,” says Norbert Toedter of the Sylt Bathing Society, which markets the island’s attractions. “Only after big destructive storms like the one two years ago is it no problem to get the right funding.”

The protection extended across a smattering of islands, sandbars and marshes by the Wattenmeer preserve has halted some wildlife losses inflicted by boaters and anglers. But the over-harvested oysters have yet to come back, testifying to the damage that construction has inflicted on tidal systems, says Harald Asmus of the Alfred Wegener Institute, a marine biology lab at the island’s northern extreme.

“It’s important for people on the island to understand these sensitive habitats,” the biologist says. “People here live from tourism, but tourism lives from nature. We need to encourage a different type of visitor to come here--one who wants to appreciate the rich sea and wildlife more than bathing and recreation.”

Sylt’s marshes, bristling with sea grass and flanked by shallow, muddy flats exposed at low tide, are an important resting place each year for as many as 12 million migratory birds traveling between the southern hemisphere and their northern Siberian and Greenland breeding grounds, Asmus says. Aiming for the bird-watching tourist would not only better protect the environment, he adds, but would extend the currently compact three-month high season to the spring and fall months when the birds arrive.

Sylt has been connected to the mainland by a five-mile railroad causeway since 1927--a structure that has seriously disrupted the natural tidal flows and sea life. But the intrusions on nature began long before that: Farmers trying to reclaim more land for planting were carving canals and building dikes along the mainland 700 years ago.

Now, with an average of 30,000 cars daily on the island in peak season, the quaint cobblestone streets are backed up for miles, and the sea air is choked with exhaust fumes.

“There are regular proposals forwarded for making the island car-free, but they never get anywhere,” says Petra Reiber, mayor of the island’s biggest settlement, Westerland. “People come here for a week or two and stay in houses and apartments, so they use their cars like giant suitcases to bring food and clothes and toys.”

Still an outsider after a decade as Westerland’s administrator, Reiber expresses frustration at her fellow mayors’ refusal to put constraints on land use.

“People who come here often act as though they are never coming back. They throw trash along the bike paths and trample the dunes,” says the Frankfurt native. “We get letters from visitors complaining that the island is too crowded and it’s no longer relaxing.”

Nearly 70% of the island’s territory is a protected nature preserve, which has squeezed the housing for locals and 6 million overnight visitors a year into ever more densely populated settlements, says Peter Fritzsche, head of the Sylt Entrepreneurs Assn.

Excessive development is being blamed for the steady erosion of tourism, but Fritzsche notes that other factors are also at work. It now costs no more to get to Greece, Turkey or Spain’s coastal resorts, and younger Germans are more experimental than their elders, who often demand the same room in the same hotel for the same two weeks here every summer.

Gabriele Weidner, marketing director for the Tourism Service, which operates an elaborate complex of spas, baths and wellness centers on the island, says the clientele gets older each year.

“We need to sponsor events like surfing contests and family-friendly attractions like amusement parks,” says the enthusiastic newcomer.

With its loyal, if aging, visitors and an emerging market of health-conscious young couples, Sylt will survive the tourism downturn for the foreseeable future, much as it can buy time in the inevitable losing battle to save the coastline.

“When Sylt sinks, so will Hamburg,” says Toedter of the bathing society. “Global warming is not just a problem for our little island.”