Human History and Conservation on Trischen
	In 1867 people found out that the pile of sand named 'Trischen' might be useful for agriculture and livestock grazing. They started to built wooden structures that helped to speed up sedimentation and even built a circular dike to prevent the central part of the island from being flooded. A shepherd used to live in a stone house on the island, but both the dike and the house were repeatedly taken down by raging storms and the associated floods at the turn of the century. Since the soil was extremely fertile, and promised very fruitful crops, the island was again stabilised and cultivated in the 1920s. With a tremendous effort, a 2.7 km dike was built around the interior of the island, and several sheds and houses were erected to accommodate the workers and the farmer family.		Big shed 1928 Owner`s mansion 1936 Old wheel buried in the mud Old beacon, taken down 1996 Today`s remnants of the jetty Nature warden`s hut until 2002 The supply boat comes once a week Mailman and more: Polli Dunlin Spoonbill: new colonizer
	But the one-time effort of the dike was not enough. Year by year the North Sea claimed more land area, eroded the dunes and tore holes into the dike. Large amounts of money were put into all sorts of stabilising structures, but only 10 years later humans had to give up. Despite excellent crops on the fields it was impossible to defend the island against the sea, and by 1936 humans had surrendered. The houses were vacated and everyone who had a boat was allowed to take as much building material as he wanted to. By 1943 the North Sea had flattened the dike and destroyed most remnants of civilisation on the island. A shepherd persisted with his herd until 1947, but since too many sheep lost their lives in recurring floods, humans deserted the island for good.
	Since then the island has developed without any further interference - no dike, no artificial structures, no tree plantations and no houses. The sand was blown across the island, the dunes along the west coast eroded and built up further east. This equilibrium of destruction and regeneration persists until today, and results in a gradual 'movement' of the island to the east. The original dike and the houses are now about 2 km west of today`s island, but still there are plenty of signs of the former civilization to be found on the beach.
	The old jetty, formerly built into a deep water channel on the island`s east coast, is now emerging again from underneath the sand on the west coast - the entire island has wandered across it in the last 60 years! Bricks, old wheels, wooden structures, buckets, billys, beds and many other non-natural things are buried underneath the sand and clay of todays island and will emerge in due time when the island has shifter further.
	Beacons that were put up to provide shelter for shipwrecked people had to be rebuilt constantly as the island had basically left them standing in the water after a couple of years. Today these beacons are not needed anymore and the last one was taken down in 1996. The only building on Trischen today is the nature warden`s hut - and this too had to be rebuilt every other decade, when the old one was taken away by the sea.
	A nature warden has been guarding the birdlife on the island since 1910. Formerly its main job was to prevent people from culling breeding birds and stealing their eggs, a great source of food during hard times. Until the mid 1940s up to 40.000 eggs were harvested from Trischen every year! The island was declared a nature reserve already in 1934, but it wasn´t until humans had left that vegetation and birdlife could develop naturally. Since 1985 Trischen has been protected within the core area of the National Park, and today the island can be regarded as truly pristine.
	The nature warden still guards the island today, in order to prevent boaters and other people from entering and disturbing the wildlife. Since the island is well known by now, fewer and fewer people come to make an illegal visit, and the warden commits most of his time to bird counts and other monitoring activities. This website was launched in 2002 in order to enable people to explore the island and discover its natural beauty, and it is being updated directly from the island. Laptop, solar panel and mobile phone are the warden´s second most important assets, after binoculars and a raincoat.
	Living on Trischen was never easy. There is no freshwater on the island, and today there are no fruit or vegetables growing here anymore. Supplies are shipped in from the mainland, and in the last 25 years one single man has done this job alone and with great enthusiasm. Polli Rohwedder, 79-year old local fisherman, knows the island like no-one else. He spent his youth here harvesting wheat and potatoes, witnessed all conservation activities from beginning on, and still acts as a volunteer ranger today. Once a week he takes his small boat out and delivers water, food and mail to the island. He is a prime source of information, and the only regular human contact for the nature warden. Without his ongoing effort life on Trischen would be more complicated and lonely.
	Conservation on this island is an ongoing story of success. Due to the lack of disturbance from humans the island has become a showcase for natural processes and development of plant and animal communities. Several species that are very sensitive to human presence breed only here or on very few similar conservation islands. Nonetheless, an island with only 180 ha in size is insufficent to preserve our natural heritage, and what lies ahead is to carry the idea of Trischen out to many other places.