Das Projekt "Schutz und Entwicklung des Benninger Rieds" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Landesentwicklung und Umweltfragen durchgeführt. The goal is to preserve and improve the core zones as an ecologically valuable calcareous fen, and to create humid meadows in the surroundings by rehumidification. However, the hydrological measures required first need to be examined through a detailed hydrological survey as to their possible impact on the nearby built-up areas; their implementation can only take place, after consultation with the Commission and appropriate authorities, during the second stage of the project. Presumably these measures will entail reduction of the outflow of streams and ditches and the filling of drainage systems. The purchase or lease of about 42 hectares in the core zone and surroundings and intensive information of the residents affected, are a necessary precondition. Furthermore, it is planned to remove non-indigenous trees, in particulars firs, from the core zone. Public relations work to raise awareness among the local community and visitors of the value of this forgotten site, will also be carried out. There is a little corner of forgotten nature, right next to built-up areas, between the towns of Benningen and Memmingen, dubbed the Benninger Ried. It is a 22 hectare calcareous fen and petrifying springs complex with expanses of water where groundwater reaches the surface, containing rare plants such as Armeria purpurea, which occurs nowhere else in the world, and Apium repens. Around the core zone that areas not built up are occupied by extensively and intensively used pastures. Because of changes in the quality and percolation volume of the groundwater, considerable alternations to the vegetation have occured over the past decades. Open springs have become overgrown, natural succession toward bushes is taking hold. Reasons for this are primarily the development of housing estates, which means that the site's core is no longer hydrologically connected to its surroundings, and intensive agricultural use.