Model region for promoting and developing sustainabiliy

For the ninth time, the BPWW Management GmbH organised an event in 2015 to celebrate GEO Biodiversity Day as initiated by the renowned German nature magazine GEO. This gives us an opportunity to explore alternately a community in Lower Austria or a district in Vienna and to get the local inhabitants excited about the biodiversity on their own patch.

For centuries, wildcats were part of the native fauna. However, there have not been any sightings of wildcat in the Wienerwald although it would seem to offer optimal Habitat conditions.

The project ’Wiesenmeisterschaft’ (Meadow-Master Championship) has been used annually since 2006 to award the title to people who manage their meadows, pastures and orchard meadows ecologically, and to celebrate the award by bringing these managers into the limelight.

In co-operation with the Austrian Federal Forestry Authority and the Ausbildungszentrum für Wald (Woodland Research and Education Centre), we examined the question whether the changing climatic and economic terms of reference indicate that increased damage to beech forests is to be expected in future.

In the course of this Wienerwald BR project, in Co operation with Forstamt und Landwirtschaftsbetrieb der Stadt Wien (MA 49) and ÖBf AG, the wood is sampled several times a year over an observation period of 10 years, trapping, collecting and identifying beetles and fungi respectively.

A number of questions were explored in connection with the project: e.g. which properties are linked with which soil types, what are the changes in availability of water to plants, and how good is the nutrient supply in various locations?

In conjunction with this project, spiders and ground beetles were explored in natural forest patches in the Irenental.

The initiation of natural regeneration is one of the most important but also most difficult tasks in the management of semi-natural forests. The extent of benefit from light absorption has a major impact on the regenerative success of beechwoods and oakwoods.