Culture instead of wild nature — The resistance to the construction of the Gesäuse National Park

Diploma thesis at the University of Vienna Vienna This diploma thesis deals with the theme of the National Park Critics and the National Park Partners: The National Park is called: Democracy ade announced in spring 2002 the protection community of those affected by the Gesäuse National Park, when the Styrian state government announced that the Gesäuse National Park would be opened on 26 October 2002. The affected area is owned by the country and has been a nature reserve since 1958. However, it was used for agriculture and forestry and was burdened with serving rights, as well as with alpine and hunting leases. For five years, the conservation community had tried to prevent this conservation project. In the spring of 1997, a few weeks after the political decision of the Steiermärk Provincial Government for the National Park project, affected land owners and beneficial owners, especially alpine farmers, had formed into a community of interests. A year later, the people involved set up the association Schutzgemeinschaft, which was accessible to all national park critics. The association acted regionally as a public opinion-maker against the National Park, produced its own brochure and operated professional press work. The aim of the protection community was to prevent a national park according to the guidelines of the International Nature Conservation Union (IUCN). The National Park Category II of the IUCN includes strict requirements for national parks aimed at depriving 75 percent of the area of any human use and re-creating and preserving untouched natural landscape/wildness. Only in small conservation zones within the national park area will agricultural and forestry activities continue to be possible, but must comply with ecological and nature conservation requirements. The requirements of the national park did not bring any fundamental changes to the alpine pasture management, and the nature reserve already had conservation requirements for the alpine farmers. However, a national park brings the end of trophy hunting and profit-oriented forestry. In the protection community, therefore, people from hunting and forestry came to the fore, while the alpine pasture and agriculture moved into the background.