Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity

Most animals in Austria are insects, of which there are approx- imately 37,000 species [ ] 53 National communication and biodiversity awareness Over the past decade Austria has been successful at raising biodiversity awareness. The campaign “vielfalt- leben” was launched in 2009 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Manage- ment in cooperation with many partner organizations — in particu- lar nature and environment NGOs — and has grown ever since. Some 50 species protection projects have been implemented across Austria, contributing to the improvement of the status of more than 500 threatened species and their habitats, for exam- ple restoring habitats for amphibians in the March-Thaya-floodplains and establishing aeries for saker falcons. A national network of local governments has been established to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. To date, more than 140 municipalities which are members of the vielfaltleben network have been addressing over 600,000 residents. According to information from the Austrian Naturschutzbund, a total of 5 million people have been reached by means of the campaign. A Biodiversity Week is being organized every year in cooperation with more than 100 partners, staging more than 200 events on biodiversity across Austria. Many other events have been carried out to strengthen biodiversity awareness. The National Parks Austria campaign and strategy propose to increase the public’s presence in the parks. So far, National Parks have usually been presented at a regional level, but 4,500 visitors have been counted on the Days of Species Diversity held in Austria’s National Parks, in cooperation with the Ger- man GEO magazine. Approximately 74,000 students visited the National Parks in 2008 and more than half a million visitors were counted in in- formation centres and at exhibitions. The campaign has the three main communication objectives: to signif- icantly increase the general public and decision makers’ awareness of “National Parks Austria” as a nation- al brand; to strengthen the positive image of the Austrian national parks; and to extend the tools for awareness raising for National Parks Austria. Through its activities, the Austrian National Rural Network, “Netzwerk Land”, supports the goals and key topics of rural development and, since 2009, more than 100 events have been organized in its name. Austrian valley Austria D espite its small size (83,853 km 2 ), Austria has an exceptionally diverse landscape, climate and, consequently, biodiversity. Here, the Alpine, Continental and Pannonian biogeographic regions converge, underneath which are three major landscape divisions: the Alps; the Granite and Gneiss Highlands of the Bohemian Massif; and the forelands and basins. Natural landscapes and semi-natural cultural landscapes — together highly significant for the maintenance of biodiversity — cover over one-third of national territory. Austria is rich in species and habitats, with approximately 3,000 indigenous vascular plant species, 8,000 lower plants, 10,000 fungi and 46,000 animal species. Jace Grandinetti on Unsplash